Anne BralyChattanooga has hamburger joints by the dozen. Do a Google search for “Chattanooga’s best hamburgers” and several will pop up, including Armando’s, Urban Stack, Slick’s and more.
But one place will appear more than any other: Tremont Tavern. From Foursquare to Zomato, the reviews are the same: “The best burger in Chattanooga.”
Dustin Choate opened Tremont in December 2006, so with nearly a decade of experience in the burger business, he was my go-to man for questions about building the perfect burger. But first, a little background: When the restaurant, located in the heart of Riverview, first opened, its now-popular hamburgers weren’t even on the menu.
“We only had paninis available for food at first,” Choate says. “I did not really want to do major food. I just wanted to focus on the craft beer that no one was doing in Chattanooga at the time. But the state of Tennessee requires a restaurant to have major food sales in order to sell alcohol, so I decided we would do a small, simple menu utilizing high-quality ingredients.”
Over the years, the menu grew.