Hundred Burgers

In 2017 Alex González-Urbón and Ezequiel Maldjian bought two tickets to New York to eat the city’s fifteen best burgers in four days and review them on Instagram. They enjoyed it so much that they kept going: over the next three years they visited 22 countries, from London and Paris to Los Angeles, Dubai, Buenos Aires and Berlin, and tasted more than three hundred burgers. The hundred places that taught them the most gave the restaurant its name when the first Hundred opened in Valencia in 2020.

Success came astonishingly fast. In 2023 the World’s Best Burgers ranking by the Swedish site Burgerdudes, which tests burger joints in dozens of countries, placed Hundred second in the world; in 2024 it came first, the first restaurant outside the United States to top the list, and it has kept the title in 2025 and 2026. The chain now has restaurants in Valencia and Madrid, and in 2025 an investment firm bought a majority stake. The founders insist they will never franchise.

Everything is built around the beef. Hundred uses Rubia Gallega, the prized Galician breed, buys its own cattle, chooses the cuts and adjusts the fat in its blend daily; the meat is dry-aged in house, typically for around 60 days, minced in each restaurant every day and formed by hand, so the flavour varies a little from day to day. The bun is a demi-brioche with hints of French pain au lait, which took a year of night-time experiments to perfect and is baked in the shops at five every morning. Fries or sweet potatoes cost extra, and any burger can be made vegan with a Beyond patty.

Around eight restaurants in Valencia and Madrid, all company-run; the founders say they will never franchise.

• Holy Cow! (Switzerland, since 2009). The Lausanne gourmet burger chain built on Swiss beef and Swiss cheese. Also built on beef, bacon, barbecue sauce and cooked onions.
• Burgermeister (Germany, since 2006). The Berlin burger chain that started in an old public toilet under the U-Bahn. Also built on beef, bacon, barbecue sauce and cooked onions.
• PNY (France, since 2012). Paris New York: flame-grilled burgers of aged grass-fed beef, with a different exclusive burger in every branch. Also built on beef, bacon, barbecue sauce and cheese.
• Patty & Bun (United Kingdom, since 2012). The London burger joint that names its burgers after TV characters and soul singers. Also built on beef, bacon, cooked onions and cheese.