Center4Hamburgers

Foreign tourists ranked Center4Hamburgers as the top 2 restaurants in Japan on TripAdvisor. Located in Takayama, the diner claims to be the only hamburger restaurant in the city.

Center4Hamburgers pops up as one of the top dining search result on Google in Takayama. After having Japanese food for the past few days, we decided to visit the restaurant for dinner.

It was night time and the all the shops on the same street have closed for the day. The entire street of old Japanese row houses was dark and on one of the buildings was a small sign that said “Center 4”. We had to walk through a narrow corridor after entering the building.

Center4Hamburgers is very small and there is only room for approx 15 dinners at any one time. The western interior gives off a cosy vibe. Signs in the restaurant politely requests for dinners to not take any photos of the place. One person mans the entire place and he gestured us to an empty table as he cooks behind the counter.

The menu offers a wide variety of burgers. There is also a limited quantity of their speciality Hida Beef Burger. I decided to order a Cheese Burger (885¥ without chips).

There was nothing fancy about the Cheese Burger. As the name suggests, it is cheese together with a thick and juicy patty served between two toasted buns. There wasn’t any frills and trills that one might find in a hipster cafe. The highlight of the burger was the patty itself.