If you like burgers—and you obviously like burgers, or at least have an academic interest in them, or you wouldn’t be reading this—chances are the burger is not the onlymeat and bread combo you’re into. Well, at Bird + Bear, the hamburger meets one of its co-champions in meat sandwich history: the Italian grinder. Pepperoncini and a fresh, green spiced Italian salsa verde mayo set the stage for the classical romantic meeting of ground beef and grilled capicola. Grilling the capicola is brilliant: The slight char and smokiness makes it feel a little like bacon, but it’s spicy and thin, and never pulls your burger apart like gristly bacon sometimes can. (I know it’s heresy to say anything bad about bacon, but sometimes it’s not worth the trouble, and Bird + Bear makes a good argument for salumi as a replacement.) Meanwhile, the pepperoncini keeps things bright and tangy, and the salsa verde mayo drips all over the plate. It’s a burger you can justify having twice in the week—once as a grinder/burger and once as a burger/grinder. THOMAS ROSS

The Portland Mercury’s Burger Week—AKA the best week of your life—runs from Aug 8-13. Feast on amazing $5 burgers at 35 restaurants… and while you’re at it, we challenge you to donate $5 to Oregon Food Bank for every burger you eat!

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