🌍 Famous Burgers Around the World

Updated July 2026

Once the hamburger spread beyond the United States, cooks everywhere adapted it to local tastes, local ingredients and local dietary rules. The result is a world of burgers that share a form — patty in bread — but taste distinctly of the places that made them their own. Here are specific ones, with the countries and cities they belong to.

Japan: teriyaki glaze and a bun made of rice

Japan localized the burger more inventively than almost anywhere. The teriyaki burger glazes the patty in sweet-savory soy, and the rice burger replaces the bread bun entirely with two compressed, griddled discs of short-grain rice. Both are commonly credited to MOS Burger, a chain founded in Tokyo in the 1970s, though introduction dates are worth checking at the source. Japanese chains also lean hard on seasonal and regional editions — shrimp (ebi) burgers, and prefecture-specific builds using Hokkaido dairy or Kyushu pork. South Korea took a parallel path: the bulgogi burger, a patty in the sweet marinated-beef idiom, is a fixture in Seoul.

Australia and New Zealand: "with the lot"

The classic Australian burger "with the lot" — the standard in corner takeaway shops from Sydney to Perth — piles on a fried egg, bacon, cheese, grilled pineapple, and, decisively, a slice of pickled beetroot, which stains the bun magenta and is the single clearest marker of an Australian burger. New Zealand shares the tradition; the beetroot-and-egg build is familiar from Auckland to Christchurch, and McDonald's New Zealand has sold a "Kiwiburger" on exactly that formula.

South Asia: the bun kebab, and a burger shaped by what people do not eat

In Pakistan, Karachi's bun kebab is the local burger by any reasonable definition: a spiced beef, lentil or potato patty, fried, often with an egg cooked over it, in a soft bun with chutney and raw onion. It is street food in the truest sense, and it predates the arrival of the American chains.

India is the clearest case of a burger reshaped by dietary custom rather than taste. With beef avoided by many Hindus and pork by Muslims, the Indian fast-food burger runs on chicken and vegetables — the McAloo Tikki, a spiced potato-and-pea patty, was created specifically for the Indian market and became one of the country's best-known burgers. Mumbai's vada pav — a spiced potato fritter in a soft roll with chutney — is frequently and fairly described as India's original burger, and it has nothing to do with America at all.

The Middle East and North Africa: kofta logic

Across Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and the Gulf, burger patties often carry the seasoning of kofta and seekh kebab — cumin, coriander, parsley, onion worked into the meat rather than salt and pepper on the surface. Lamb frequently stands in for or joins the beef. In Israel, kosher burger restaurants in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem work around the prohibition on mixing meat and dairy, which means no cheeseburger: the flavor engineering goes into sauces, pickles and fried onions instead.

Southeast Asia: the Ramly burger and the sweet burger

Malaysia's Ramly burger is a genuinely distinct format, sold from roadside stalls across Kuala Lumpur and beyond: the patty is fried, sauced with a sweet-savory mix, then wrapped in a thin fried egg like a parcel before it goes in the bun. In the Philippines, the sweet-leaning burger is the norm rather than the exception — the Yumburger from Manila-founded chain Jollibee is built around a noticeably sweet sauce, and that sweetness runs through Filipino fast food generally.

Latin America: pile it higher

Colombia is the maximalist. A hamburguesa in Bogotá or Medellín routinely arrives with pineapple, a slice of ham, crushed potato chips for crunch, and pink salsa rosada (ketchup and mayonnaise). Brazil's X-Tudo — the "X" is a pun on the pronunciation of cheese — stacks egg, ham, corn, peas and shoestring potato sticks in São Paulo and beyond. In northern Mexico, the Monterrey style wraps the patty in bacon and adds ham and American cheese. Chile's beloved italiano build — tomato, mashed avocado and mayonnaise, in the colors of the Italian flag — is classically served on a churrasco sandwich in Santiago, but is applied just as often to a burger patty.

Europe: the burger that was already there

The Balkans complicate the story pleasantly. Pljeskavica — a wide, thin, spiced ground-meat patty served in flatbread with onion and kajmak — is a national dish of Serbia, particularly associated with Leskovac, and developed on its own terms rather than as an adaptation of the American burger. In the Netherlands and Belgium, burgers routinely arrive with mayonnaise-based sauces and frietsaus rather than ketchup. And in Germany, the country the name came from, Hamburger is still first and foremost a person from Hamburg — see why it is called a hamburger.

Halal, kosher and dietary adaptations

Beyond flavor, the burger adapts to religious and dietary rules everywhere it lands: halal slaughter across Muslim-majority countries and in halal chains in the UK and France; kosher preparation in Israel and Jewish communities elsewhere, which rules out the cheeseburger entirely; lamb or chicken in place of beef or pork where either is avoided; and a global wave of plant-based patties. See our specialty diet burger guide.