As my journey across this great state of New Hampshire has continued, I have heard word of one place that stands head-and-shoulders above its competition, a place that would make this series fundamentally incomplete should I not go there. That place goes by the name of Tuckaway Tavern, itself tucked away in the otherwise unassuming town of Raymond. On first glance, the restaurant is about as unassuming as the town around it, assuming you don’t notice the massive queue of people waiting to be seated. This place has a reputation, and the people therefore come from all around to taste the mythical food themselves. I personally escaped the queue by waiting for seating at the bar (to clarify, I didn’t order anything aside from Pepsi from the bar), but the line should make you already aware of how good the food must be if people are willing to wait upwards of an hour just to get to the table.
Once you’re seated, the farm aesthetic should become rather apparent. The walls are styled to look like barn doors, there’s country-themed lights over the table, the whole thing is supposed to give the feeling of eating farm-to-table. Considering there’s a butchery adjacent to the restaurant, this synergy between the restaurant and the butchery makes sense. However, this restaurant’s burgers are much more important than its looks.
The burger I chose is called the “Whole Tuckin Farm”, with a massive patty, cheddar, bacon, a special “Tuck sauce”, and fried chicken on top to complete the burger. Now, before I properly review it, I will give some context for why I chose it. You see, the burger had apparently been reviewed on Guy Fieri’s show, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. For readers who know of Guy Fieri, his most famous association is with his signature concept of “Flavortown”. Before I went to Tuckaway Tavern, I thought it was a branding thing to make Guy Fieri have a thing he’s known for. Until the moment I took my first bite of that burger, I did not properly understand Flavortown. When I tasted that burger, I understood that Flavortown is a meditative state, only achievable by eating food of such impeccable rarity and quality that it is comparable to the masterworks of the Met. When the ancient Greek myths speak of heavenly ambrosia, this is what they refer to. The texture of the patty, the crunch of the bacon, the heat of the chicken, every last component and attribute of the ingredients, all of them combine and merge into one unstoppable force of carnal delight that my words, digitally carved into this site, do little justice towards. My heaping of praise towards this burger may have already given this away, but it is easily the best one I have found. There is simply nothing more I can say.
How the scoring system works:
There are four categories I grade a good burger on: its size, its flavor, how original/unique it is, and the overall mood of the restaurant. Each of these is graded on a 10-point scale, then weighed individually to create an overall rating out of 100. Flavor has a weighting of 4, originality has a weighting of 3, size has a weighting of 2, and restaurant ambiance has a weighting of 1.
Scores:
Size: 19/20
Flavor: 40/40
Originality: 28/30
Restaurant Ambiance: 9/10
Overall: 96/100
In a word: “A burger you simply must tuck away!”
