On a crisp Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, a steady stream of patrons milled about a space with red brick walls, waiting to pick up orders of towering burgers before nabbing wooden stools at the restaurant's perimeter. It was a scene that could have taken place in Brooklyn or Boise, especially given the huge American flag that hung near the doorway. But the restaurant, 202 Hamburger & Delicious, was on the Corso di Porta Ticinese, a shopping street in Milan.
It is just one of a spate of burger bars and restaurants that have popped up across this refined northern Italian city in recent years, fueled by a fascination with American comfort food and its implicit casualness — the antithesis of the lingering, multicourse traditional Italian meal. The most intriguing of these new spots use high-end ingredients that are distinctly Italian in provenance but have far-ranging results: burgers that are near facsimiles of the best across the Atlantic, some that are emphatically Italian-accented and others that touch on both cuisines.
"Milan is international compared to other Italian cities, and people are starting to move away from the classic Italian way of eating with courses like primo and secondo," said Tizzy Beck, who owns Tizzy's N.Y. Bar & Grill in the city. "They're also starting to realize that fast food doesn't have to be junk food if high-quality ingredients are used."
At the year-old 202 Hamburger & Delicious (Corso di Porta Ticinese, 6; 39-02-8366-0635; 202hamburger.com) it is not just the atmosphere but the luscious burgers that could pass for American — the result of a six-month tasting trip in New York City by its owners, Roberto Caramia and Ivan Totaro.
"We tried a different burger each day," Mr. Caramia said.
Beniamino Nespor and Eugenio Roncoroni, friends since they were teenagers, cooked in some of the world's top restaurant kitchens — Mr. Nespor at Restaurante MartÃn Berasategui in the Basque region of Spain, Mr. Roncoroni at Quince in San Francisco — before opening Al Mercato Ristorante & Burger Bar (Via Sant'Eufemia, 16; 39-02-8723-7167; al-mercato.it) in 2011. The two distinct concepts are at play on either side of a glassed-in kitchen. On one side, diners at Al Mercato Ristorante are treated to a more formal experience, with the option of a 10-course tasting menu. The meal is more casual at the Burger Bar, which offers patties made from Rossa Reggiana beef and other global street foods like a pork belly tostada.
"Eating a burger is fun and dirty," Mr. Nespor said. "It's not like sitting down for a traditional family meal for two and a half hours and getting uncomfortable."
Even large restaurant companies have become besotted with the burger. Gruppo Sebeto, a Neapolitan restaurant group known for its far-reaching pizza chain Rossopomodoro — which New Yorkers may know from its outpost in the Italian-food emporium Eataly — turned its sights on the hamburger with the 2011 opening of Ham Holy Burger (Via Palermo, 15; 39-02-875-510; hamholyburger.com).
"After so many years in the pizza world, we started searching for another 'food for all,' " said Franco Manna, a Gruppo Sebeto founder.
On a car-free Sunday in April, parents and their well-dressed children biked through the boutique-filled Brera neighborhood to the airy restaurant, where they customized their burgers made with Fassone beef from the Piedmont region. Toppings included Italian ingredients like the cured meat speck, smoked scamorza cheese and grilled radicchio. The concept appears to be thriving: the second Ham Holy Burger opened in May 2012 in Rome, and the third in Milan's Marghera neighborhood in November.
Before heading off to one of the raucous bars along the canals of the bustling Navigli neighborhood, young Milanese stop at Trita Tailor Made Burgers (Piazza XXIV Maggio, 6; no phone; trita.it). It's a bright counter-service spot founded in March 2012 by three friends: Riccardo Cortese, Federico Pinna and Alessandro Dalli. In addition to beef, the menu here includes Bufalo Campano, meat from buffaloes that are raised for 15 months. Through the kitchen window, cooks can be spotted cutting huge slabs of meat, running them through a grinder and shaping patties by hand.
Another group of investors plans to open Polpa, another burger spot, in the lively Porta Romana neighborhood later this summer.
A few blocks away, a hipster crowd congregates at Tizzy's, which opened in 2011 (Alzaia Naviglio Grande, 46; 39-02-5811-8227; tizzysbarandgrill.com). The flavorful patties are ground and blended by a mom-and-pop Italian butcher shop, said Ms. Beck, a New York native, but are accompanied by Americana — toppings like Cheddar cheese, desserts like banana splits and Brooklyn Brewery beer.
Already armed with an arsenal of favorite burgers in her hometown, including those at Shake Shack and at Little Owl, Ms. Beck did not have to make special burger research trips.
"I'm a New Yorker just doing what I know," she said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 19, 2013
An earlier version of this article described one of the types of meat served at Trita Tailor Made Burgers incorrectly. The Bufalo Campano is buffalo meat, not beef, and it is the buffaloes that are raised for 15 months; the meat is not aged 15 months.
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