Le Languedoc (on Broad St) is a French bistro with a small but imaginative menu of steaks, chicken lobster, fluke, quail, duck and sweetbreads. We’ve written about it before, describing their more formal menu, but had never ventured to the below stairs café where burgers and the like predominate.

This year, all that has changed. You can order the fancier menu in any room, and the cheeseburger in any room, and have the option of pairing that burger with an appetizer if you like. The dining room décor is really quite elegant with bottom-lit floating flowers and white tablecloth service.

We ate at Le Languedoc last night for the burgers, but preceded them with a couple of salads.

One was a delicious Bartlett Farms fresh tomato and bleu cheese salad ($18), and the other a Burrata salad ($16) with figs, Arugula, Zucchini, Seasoned Crumbs, and Balsamic dressing.

We both ordered the Cheeseburger and Garlic Fries ($18.75) and it is easily the best burger on the island.

It’s a fairly thick burger, prepared to the doneness you request, served on an English muffin, open on the platter, with lettuce, tomato and onion under the top muffin, so you can edit them before putting the top layer on. The waiter brought us each three little dishes of ketchup, ketchup and mustard to use on or burger and with our fries.

The garlic fries were hot and mildly redolent of garlic so they don’t overwhelm you, but exceptionally good fries.
We should note that the burger and fries are quite filling, and you really don’t need those salads unless you are exceptionally hungry. Desserts are available, but we confess that we finished our meal with ice cream from the Juice Guys.
You can also get a rather good burger from LolaBurger (for about $17.50 with cheese and fries) at the Milestone Rotary, but not only is this one better; the atmosphere and service at Le Languedoc are unsurpassed. Besides, if someone wants to order from the rest of their menu they can do that, too!