Take a bite out of National Burger Day with the biggest and most-expensive of all time
Today is National Burger Day, so to celebrate, Craig Glenday serves up a mouthwatering selection of meaty achievements. Vegetarian and vegan options available...
It's National Burger Day - a time to gather around the grill with your family to sing "Silent Bite", hang pickles on the tree, stuff your stockings with fries, and leave out a sesame-seed bun and ramekin of ketchup for Father Patty.
So ubiquitous is the humble burger that it crosses a vast spectrum of record breaking, from supersized collections and speedy consumers to great gatherings and most expensive menus.
However you choose to honour this feastive season, you can sit back after your burger dinner with all the trimmings, your gold paper crown slipping down your head, and digest this rundown of 10 of the most delicious burger superlatives.
HOW MUCH? Most expensive...
If money's no object, then mark National Burger Day in 24-karat style with the most expensive burger. The Daltons restaurant in Voorthuizen, Netherlands, added a regular-sized portion of burger to their menu in 2021 that cost a whopping €5,000 (£4,295 or $5,967!) "The Golden Boy", crafted by chef Robbert Jan De Veen, is aptly named: the bun is wrapped in gold leaf, which pairs perfectly with the champagne-infused dough. Nestling between the buns is a patty of Japanese Wagyu brisket and chuck short rib.
It's topped with beluga caviar, champagne-battered onion rings, 100% vintage Joselito Paleta Iberico Bellota ham, a scattering of Alaskan king crab cooked in Puligny-Montrachet wine, shavings of white truffle and white-truffled cheddar. Finishing it all off is a barbecue sauce made from single-malt whisky and kopi luwak coffee (yes, brewed with coffee beans picked out of the poo of the civet cat!) $6,000 apiece? I'll have two, please...
HOW BIG? #1 Largest patty
If size matters to you, then have we got beef for you!? The largest ever patty of meat was a hulking great slab of ground Montana beef weighing 2.74 tonnes (6,040 lb)! It was minced at the Sleeping Buffalo Resort at Saco, Montana, in 1999, and had a diameter of 7.32 m (24 ft) - the size of a circus ring! And it was indeed a circus at the resort when a crowd of more than 3,500 people gathered to watch the burger cook for about two hours on a specially made 53.5-m² (576 sq ft) grill - the size of a one-bedroom apartment.
Of course, this was just the patty. If you want the full big-burger experience, you need to check out this next whopper...
HOW BIG? #2 Largest burger on a menu
The record for the largest burger commercially available - i.e., one you can order off a menu - is the 352.44-kg (777-lb) monster that went on sale for the first time at Juicys Outlaw Grill in Corvallis, Oregon, USA, in July 2011. You'll need $5,000 - and 48 hours advance notice - to buy this big boy, but no surprise, given that it's the equivalent of more than 3,000 quarterpounders! Want fries with that?
Not quite big enough for you? Then you need to head over to the home of the burger...
HOW BIG? #3 Largest hamburger of all time
The "hamburger" is so named NOT because it's made with ham but because it originates in the German city of Hamburg. The original Hamburger was just a patty of ground beef seasoned with herbs and spices. When German immigrants brought their traditional dishes to the USA in the 19th century, American chefs began serving up the Hamburger-style beef as a sandwich, and the burger as we know it was born.
So, to promote Germany as the home of the burger, six German chefs - Wolfgang Leeb, Tom Reicheneder, Rudi Dietl, Josef Zellner, Hans Maurer and Christian Dischinger (all Germany) - prepared the largest hamburger in Pilsting, Germany, on 9 July 2017. The final cooked triple-decker tipped the scales at 1,164.2 kg (2,566 lb 9 oz), which is about the same weight as an adult walrus, or 10 large refrigerators if you've got no idea of just how big a walrus is.
HOW BIG? #4 The veggie option
If the idea of eating a walrus-size portion of beef is off-putting then ask YouTube sensation MrBeast for a bite of his largest vegetarian burger. With the help of 42 friends, Jimmy Donaldson, as he's otherwise known, constructed a two-patty veggie cheeseburger that stood almost 3 ft tall (0.8 m) and weighed 2,092.4 kg (4,612 lb 15.2 oz) - that's like two shire horses. Or a large SUV, if you'd prefer a veggie alternative to two horses.
HOW BIG? #5 The vegan option
And vegans don't have to miss out either. The largest vegan burger was made by Unilever Food Solutions in Greece in 2024 - a plant-based patty slathered in vegan mayo and topped with lettuce and tomato. It weighed in at 213.4 kg (470 lb 7.5 oz), so imagine a sandwich weighing more than 700 cauliflowers or 1,400 avocados. At the end of a long day, the burger was cut up and distributed to the homeless of Athens.
HOW MANY? Largest collection...
You'll need more than a handful of sesame seeds to top the record held by "Hamburger Harry" Sperl of the USA. After a long day riding his Hamburger Harley (wearing his Hamburger helmet), Hamburger Harry likes nothing more than slipping into his hamburger pyjamas, relaxing on his hamburger bed and snuggling up to his hamburger plushies. If you can't tell, Hamburger Harry really relishes the hamburger, and has amassed the largest collection of hamburger memorabilia - a bun-believable 3,724 unique items.
Read about more epic edible records in our dedicated Food and Drink section.
HOW FAST? Speed eating...
If you're short of time this National Burger Day, then consider joining the speed-eating community, who seem to be more than happy to chow their way through multiple meat stacks against the clock. The most hamburgers eaten in one minute is five by Rix Terabite, aka Ricardo Francisco (Philippines), at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines, on 27 August 2016.
And again, vegetarians can get in on the act too: the fastest time to eat a vegetarian burger is 1 min 35.41 sec, by Max Bonsall (USA) in New York City, New York, USA, on 13 June 2025. Nom nom nom.
HOW MANY? #2 Most eaten in a lifetime
Even if you don't believe in Father Patty, someone who needs to be worshipped on National Burger Day is the incr-edible Donald Gorske of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Don ate his first McDonalds Big Mac® in 1974 and never looked back. He's so enamoured by the classic snack that he now holds the record for the most Big Mac burgers eaten in a lifetime. Every year, Guinness World Records receives his update, and at the last count in 2025, Don had downed 35,000 of them! "The main reason I stayed with this pursuit for so many years is that Big Macs are still my favourite food," says Don, "and I look forward to eating them every day." I guess for some people, every day is Burger Day!
HOW HIGH? The burger as "haute cuisine"
The burger was taken to new heights in October 2022 - literally. Andy Reid MBE, buddy Daniel Hodges and 22 other climbers organized the highest-altitude burger delivery on land, carrying a burger 5,895 m (19,340 ft) up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. What makes this fast-food delivery truly superlative is that Andy had lost both legs and his right arm while serving in Afghanistan. The first triple amputee from the UK to ascend Africa's highest mountain made the trek to raise funds for his Standing Tall Foundation charity, and was sponsored by Uber Eats. And if that doesn't perfectly capture the true, heart-grilling spirit of National Burger Day, I don't know what does.