This mellow Valley bar is hiding one of LA’s best burgers — and the burger may not even be the best thing to get at Oy Bar. Seriously, this cool hangout in Studio City is an incredible mix of dive-bar realness and menu decadence, with a burger that combines a big patty with lots of cheese, plenty of crunch, and just the right amount of bracing pickle-y features.

English muffins make for rare buns on LA burgers, but the combination is not entirely unheard of. At Lingua Franca the unique combo is possible only because the team makes its buns in-house, allowing for a pliability to the bread that would be hard to find with sturdier store-bought stuff. The result is a burger that feels simple in its arrangement but that is deeply complex thanks to black pepper mayo, burnt onions, and a rich black garlic sherry brown butter.

There’s something about simplicity done right (especially in the ongoing LA burger wars) that just stands out. At Trophies Burger Club on Fairfax, chef Geo Delgado channels a career spent cooking burgers at places like ERB, Here & Now, Burgers 99, and Goldburger to make maximum-flavor, minimum-fuss burgers that just taste like pure LA.

Irv’s is not new to LA, in one sense. The restaurant has been around in various forms for decades, but in recent years the product has been overhauled and new locations have been promised, thanks to a change in ownership. The newest Irv’s outlet now sits on La Brea at a former burger walk-up stand, where co-owner Sonia Hong can turn out California classics and pastrami-fueled specials with ease. Next up: a location in Malibu.

The in-the-know burger at Arts District fine-dining spot Camphor is one to watch. Not only is the thick bar and patio bistro table-only option a head-turner in the room, it features dry-aged beef and slowly cooked duck leg meat. The Camphor burger’s bun is even finished off with duck fat, and the burger’s sauce is made with smoked beef fat, making for a seriously rich addition to the LA burger landscape.

From pop-up to truck to permanent location, the Heavy Handed team just keeps on growing. Their latest space right on Main Street in Santa Monica is a colorful funhouse filled with heavily-seared beef and loaded beef tallow fries. This is the Westside burger spot that everyone’s been talking about, and for very good reason.

The burger Americaine at Venice’s new CouCou is already a hit, thanks to a thick wagyu beef patty and lots of grilled red onion. There’s a cognac-based sauce that makes the whole thing about as decadent as the famous Big Mec from Trois Mec, except here it’s served in what may be the newest cool-kid hangout on the Westside, complete with afternoon sunlight streaming in through tall front windows.