I’m sure many of you have researched bourbon trails, winery tours or maybe the best routes to follow during the autumn and winter seasons. I would like invite you on a trip down hamburger highway with me. We will look at some of the hottest hamburger havens in the Atlanta area.

Before we get started, let me say that the sumptuous offerings we are about to take a look at are not your father’s hamburgers and certainly not the burger experience that you grew up on. No fast food here, no mystery meat and certainly nothing that has been left to “mature” under a heat lamp.

We’re talking gourmet burgers that, in some cases, are fit for a king. (Hasn’t a national chain already utilized that monarchial moniker?)

Flip Burger Boutique is the brainchild of chef Richard Blais. Blais has competed on Iron Chef America and Top Chef All-Stars (winner season eight) as well as many other high profile television programs and has built a reputation as one of the country’s cutting edge chefs. At Flip they tout their creations as “fine dining between two buns.”

Next on our excursion down the joyous sandwich delight road is Yeah! Burger. Yeah! Burger prides itself on the use of natural and organic ingredients. All beef and bison are grass fed and free of pesticides, additives and preservatives.

I have to admit that the next heavenly hamburger outlets we are about to take a look at are high on my list of favorites. At Cheeseburger Bobby’s, you won’t find bison, soft shell crab, kobe beef or foie gras; just good old, hand-patted ground beef.

Cheeseburger Bobby’s has five locations in the Atlanta metro area, and I’m proud to say that I’ve been to all but one of them, but I can assure you it won’t be long until I bring my appetite to the last location’s inviting confines.

Get your “frequent muncher” card punched eight times, and you have just scored yourself a FREE CHEESEBURGER! I have to confess, I’ve been through two of these precious paper incentive-laden jewels.

The last stop on our journey takes us to the only national chain that I would put in the league with the aforementioned establishments. The Counter was “anti-established” in 2003 and “is the 21st century’s bold answer to the classic burger joint.”

The Counter has been featured in such publications as Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal. You can create your own burger from more than 312,000 different combinations.

So there you have it folks. I hope you have enjoyed this journey down the hamburger highway. There are more stops along the way for me, as a few more of these types of eateries have opened around Atlanta, and I am up to the task. Won’t you join me?