This favorite Miami burger just won the South Beach food festival’s Burger Bash
Call it the ultimate Miami burger.
Take the most Miami topping — guava — add crispy, fresh-fried potato sticks in homage to the Cuban frita hamburger. And put them on a patty of grass-fed beef with a secret sauce.
Locals had long hailed Kush’s Frita Burger among the best in the city. Now the rest of the country knows about it, too.
Kush’s Frita Burger, a staple on its menus at its six Miami-area restaurants, won the coveted Heineken People’s Choice Award at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s Burger Bash Friday, taking home the $5,000 prize. American Social won the Schweid & Sons Very Best Burger award from the judges and $2,500.
“I’ve had the privilege to win this (people’s choice) award in the past. It’s the award we all want to win,” Burger Bash host Bobby Flay said from the stage.
Burger Bash looked quite different this year. The festival cut capacity from the usual 4,000-plus crammed under the beachside tent to two sessions of 1,100 people, with an hour cleaning session in between, to reduce the risk of transmitting the novel coronavirus. That meant crowds moved easily between the stations of 20 restaurants invited to compete.
In the second session, Pig Beach, the Palm Beach outpost of the Brooklyn barbecue restaurant, claimed the other people’s choice award. Ted’s Burgers, which cooks exclusively at pop ups around Miami, including weekly at J. Wakefield Brewing in Wynwood, won the judge’s choice.
Where in past years, one might easily wait half an hour for a taste of a popular burger, this year only a couple of stations had lines as long as 15 minutes. Few outside of the restaurant and festival staff wore mask during the first of the two-hour sessions.
Chef and restaurant owner Matt Kuscher stayed home to let Leo Osorio, the head chef at Kush Hialeah restaurant, handle the pressure and the spotlight.
When the judge’s called Kush’s name, Osorio’s team rushed toward the stage while calling Kuscher on the phone, screaming. Osorio, born in Colombia and raised in Little Havana, celebrated with the trophy on stage.
“He said, ‘Go do your thing and make us proud,’” Osorio, 43, said. “Last year we really wanted to win and came in second. This year we took the attitude that we were just going to have fun – and that’s when you win.”
It brings renewed attention to Kuscher’s Hialeah restaurant, South Florida’s longest-running Jewish deli at 66 years, which Kuscher renovated, and added elements of his elevated pub fare. It’s the kind of place where you can find his award-winning guava burger next to a hand-sliced pastrami on rye and matzo ball soup.
The best part for those who didn’t attend? Miami can taste the Frita Burger any day of the week.
Kush Hialeah
Address: 1000 E 16th St, Hialeah
More info: Kushhospitality.com
This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 11:10 PM.
