Sunday March 9. The II Spanish Hamburger Championship is held in Galicia. The Cook Cesar Pena go with your partners Javier Alfonso and Carlos Arias, owners of the Junk Burger restaurant in Madrid, to the final with their own griddle. She does not trust those provided by the organization. She cooks the smash burger that she has been perfecting for years at her house and wins. A week later, she is out of the project.
Although, as can be seen on the championship website, the award for the best burger corresponds to “Junk by @doblecheeseburgerx2” – Cesar Peña’s brand on social networks. his participation in the prize is disappearing of all media. After the contest, throughout 2022, articles are signed with headlines such as “Javier Alfonso and Carlos Arias, founders of Junk Burger, tell how they created the “burger” with which they have won the Spanish Hamburger Championship” ( here) or “The award-winning ‘burger smash’ with which two 20-year-olds succeed” (here), to cite two examples.
Nor at DAP do we talk about Peña in our news about the award. In all the reports Arias and Alfonso ignore their involvementdoes not even appear in the history of their website, where they ensure that their smash burger they were famous before they even entered the pageant. Although they cannot erase her from the photos, because she appears in all of them, Peña does not even appear in her account of the contest.
Despite the fact that all the chronicles signed from Galicia confirm that it was Peña who cooked and presented the hamburger, for all intents and purposes, the hamburger has been the brainchild of two young entrepreneurs that brought to Spain a fashion format in the United States.
Entrepreneurship or exploitation?
We chatted with Javier Alfonso at the end of April after finding a place to eat at Junk Burger. After winning the prize you have to book weeks in advance: it is completely full. tells us the story he has shared with all the media.
Alfonso decided to write to Cesar Peña, because he had seen on his Instagram how well he made hamburgers.
Alfonso discovered the smash burger on a trip to New York. “I used to run nightclubs in Madrid, I wanted to go out at night and set up what is more a hotel business,” he explains to DAP. “I was in New York for a while looking for a business model for some kind of food.”
There he discovered this style of hamburger, super popular in the USbut hardly known in Spain: a technique that consists of forming discs of minced meat by flattening it directly on the griddle.
When he returned to Spain, he called a friend and convinced him to open a restaurant. “We jumped into the pool without having a clue, neither about the hotel industry, nor about managing employees”, admits Alfonso. “No problem. We had an idea and we really wanted to”. Also some money, of course. “My friend asked for a loan and I had money saved from the night,” says Alfonso.
The restaurant could not have opened at a worse time: february 2019, just a month before the pandemic broke out. Alfonso and his partner endured thanks to the fact that they had one of the few terraces on the street (José Abascal) and that they got fed up with having drinks; but along the way, he acknowledges in our first conversation, they didn’t care too much about taking care of his burger.
It was at the end of last year when Alfonso decided to write to Cesar Peña, because he had seen on his Instagram how well he made hamburgers: “One day at 3 in the morning I decided to write to this influencer because i liked what i did. I left her my phone and the next day she called me and said ‘hey, it’s the Spanish championship. What do you think if we sign up because I can’t sign up because I don’t have a restaurant?’ And awesome. We started working together.”
@directopaladar ¿Con quién la probarías? 👀 #tiktokfood #hamburguesa #comida #parati #restaurant ♬ Jazz Food Cooking - Playdays2021
If I’ve seen you I don’t remember
Up to this point, the stories of Peña and the owners of Junk Burger coincide. he needed a restaurant to present himself for the award, who will also pay the registration fee, and they a cook who will improve their hamburgers.
But what Alfonso defines as “advice”, a work of “improvement” of his hamburgers, for Peña it was something very different: although he kept his day job in a hospital kitchen, at night he went to the restaurant to officiate de facto as executive chef, changing suppliers, designing a new menu and training the chefs.
“I went into the kitchen to make that hamburger and I changed a joint of drunk posh people into a restaurant,” says Peña.
The chef is offended that Junk Burger says that they were already making good hamburgers before he advised them, because in his opinion they were not even making authentic smash burger: “We showed up at the restaurant to try the shitty food they made, which wasn’t even worth fucking. They give us a hamburger with a Europastry bun, the one that half of the restaurants in Spain have, a meat in discs already pressed, the worst bacon in Spain and a cheddar cheese of the worst brand. That they don’t tell you milongas. They had no sauce for the burger. I went into the kitchen to make that burger and I changed a posh drunk joint into a restaurant.”
After winning the prize, Peña assures that had to convince his partners to close the restaurant: “I forced them to close for three days because they had to do hiring, staff management, kitchen management, because I wasn’t prepared for what was coming. I worked hard to get to that point and it lasted four days because they nailed me in the back”.
Alfonso assures DAP that during that week Peña went on vacation, they organized everything and, in addition, they made him a job offer: “In principle he told us yes and when we came back after winning the first week we were looking to see if we reached an agreement and He told us that he wanted to undertake on his own, that the time had come. We shook hands and each by his side. 100% understandable for us, what were we going to tell him”.
“I couldn’t celebrate things because I had anxiety, I felt that everything I had created had been stolen from me”
Peña tells that, rather than shake hands, they almost come to blows. He had signed a private agreement, to which DAP had access, in which the company recognized his participation in the design of the Spanish championship-winning hamburger, promised to hire him as director of operations, as well as granting the right to participate in possible capital increases. But, during the week they were closed, Peña’s name began to disappear in the interviews that Alfonso and Arias gave, they did not put him on the shirts that were made to celebrate the contest and, in short, he felt ignored. After deciding to break up with them, he found out that they had been signing the opening of ghost kitchens behind their backs. “I found out after two days because the providers told me,” she explains.
“As far as I know Junk Burger has two partners, Carlos and I, and we can decide what we open how we want,” Alfonso explained to DAP in a second conversation, after hearing Peña’s opinion. “The hamburger we have createdBecause if you hire someone to improve the product, they stay with the company. We could have done it on our own. I don’t know if we would have won, maybe we would. Since the day César left we have sold many hamburgers and they have turned out the same or better. What bothers me is that they try to make us green when all we have done is try to grow as a brand. Now we have another chef who is 100 times better, so to speak, because César knew how to make a hamburger, but not run a kitchen as such.
The best hamburger in Spain is divided into two
Peña assures that he has had a very bad time with this whole thing: “I could not celebrate things because I had anxiety, I felt that everything I had created had been stolen from me. I don’t care if they say they are the model people in Sotogrande, in Marbella, but boy, the reality is that Thanks to me they won the Spanish championship. Thanks to them, too, who set up the premises, but I was the one who cooked the hamburger. They have left me on the ground”.
“He ignores me and when they interview me I have to say that we are here thanks to him?”, assures Alfonso
Although Junk Burger continues to promote itself as the best burger in Spain, César Peña keeps the award in his hands, the comb and the plaque that are awarded to the winner of the contest and that, he assures, he will wear in his new restaurant, Cesar’s Burgers, which has just opened its stalls in the Madrid neighborhood of Chueca (C/ San Lucas, 11 ) –with the help in the reform of the premises of the 1906 brand of Estrella Galicia, which is the official sponsor of the Spanish Hamburger Championship–. This has not liked anything in Junk Burger. Alfonso insists that the award belongs to the restaurant and, he assures, are very close to taking legal action against his former partner if he continues to promote his hamburgers as the best in Spain.
“César had his share of merit, it was his job, it is clear, I have never taken it from him, I am grateful, but it pisses me off that he speaks ill of us,” Alfonso concludes. “It’s just that I remind you that you blocked me two days after leaving Junk Burger without picking up the phone. What do you expect? Does he ignore me and when I’m interviewed I have to say that we’re here because of him? It is not true that it is his merit, although it is what he would like us to say. In the end he is a cook who believes that everything revolves around him and we are a company that does not care about these things, we want to open as soon as possible throughout Spain and that all the hamburgers from 12 noon to 12 at dawn come out exactly the same. This is our vision as a company. Since the day César left we have sold many hamburgers and they have turned out the same or better. That’s what’s important.”
And how about the hamburgers?
Since both Junk Burger and the new Cesar’s Burgers the same technique and the same products are used –Blond Galician beef with a high percentage of fat, smoked bacon in the Madrid mountains and American cheddar cheese– these are two very similar burgers. They are both rich. But there are subtle differences.
Burger Press 14x14cm with Wooden Handle, Square Stainless Steel Non-Stick Burger Press for Steaks, Grills, Grilled Sandwiches and Quesadillas etc.
Junk Burger’s does not keep the sauce with which it won the contest, because it was a secret recipe of Peña that he never shared. The chef has also changed the bun on the hamburger, which at Junk Burger is still Juanito Baker’s. Good bread, says Peña, but many restaurants already have it. Now he uses one baked exclusively for him by a baker from San Sebastián de los Reyes.
Your hamburger costs €12.50, compared to the 13.90 that the Junk Burger costs. And after trying both we have to say that although Junk Burger’s is good, Peña’s, at least during our visit, seemed better to us, as it combines crunchy textures with a juicier interior that disappears in the Junk Burger proposal where the meat, it seems, is crushed too much. But the latter will have to be judged by the clients.
In DAP | Our Top 25 Burger Recipes
In DAP | How to properly assemble a hamburger: the best order to assemble bread, meats, sauces and vegetables