G Burger: Ontario Beef Meets French Technique

The beef comes first at G Burger. Chef and co-owner Matthew Hinds calls it the foundation of everything on the menu: real ingredients and “beef you can trust.” Around it, a kitchen shaped by years of fine dining across Canada turns burger-joint classics into something a notch above.

A Pop-Up Born in the Gitanes Kitchen

G Burger is short for Gitanes Burger. Gitanes is the beloved French restaurant on Elgin, co-owned by Nader Salib. When COVID closed its dining room, a small takeout and delivery burger pop-up kept the kitchen running and the team working. Local cattle farms were having a hard time too, so burgers became a way to support them, and the beef still comes from Enright Cattle Co. in Tweed, Ontario. The concept was so well received that it grew into a restaurant of its own, with the chef, then a Gitanes sous chef, fleshing out the menu alongside Salib.

Six Ounces of Ontario Beef

The Gitanes burger shows how the kitchen thinks. A thick six-ounce patty cooked medium comes topped with Époisses cheese, a charred and lightly pickled red onion, and bordelaise sauce. The Époisses and the bordelaise bring decadent French flavours that trace the kitchen back to its classical French training. Crowd favourites include the L’Americaine, a double-patty burger with cheese, bacon and all the fixings, and the French onion rings served with a French onion-style dip. The hot dogs are Kwinter’s all-beef, split and griddled, then tucked into a soft potato roll. There are poutines too, and chef-curated feature menus rotate in.

Local Down to the Drinks

The drinks follow the same local logic. G Burger serves canned wine, a small and thoughtfully curated selection from small-batch, low-intervention Ontario winemakers. The rest of the list comes in cans too, with alcoholic and non-alcoholic beer, cocktails, kombucha, teas and sodas from producers such as Dominion City, Zamalek, Artizen Kombucha, Beyond the Pale and Revel Cider.

A Diner With a Past

G Burger first opened on Elgin, across the street from Gitanes. The new flagship in Wellington West occupies the former home of John’s Diner, a neighbourhood institution for over 30 years. The booths were reupholstered, the order counter wraps around the existing bar, and the old coffee machine still pours the diner’s brewed coffee. With the help of DS Studio Inc., G Burger has managed to encapsulate the look of a 1960s diner: wood panelling, pastel colours, bar stools and lightbox menu boards. A second location in Manotick and a seasonal one at Dow’s Lake complete the picture.

Behind the counter, a team devoted to hospitality sends out food the chef calls “deceptively complex yet accessible to everyone”: Ontario beef, French technique and a booth with decades of stories sharing the same tray.

Written by Marie-Ève Godin
Photography by G Burger

Updated on October 06, 2026

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