B2A2: Frita Batidos
Entry two in our burger series isn't technically a burger. That's what makes it interesting.
I want to be upfront about something before we get into this: the frita at Frita Batidos may not be a burger. It depends on your definitions, and your definitions say something about you. If a burger requires a ground beef patty on a bun, the frita qualifies on technicality alone. If a burger means a specific American tradition of beef, cheese, and standard toppings, the frita is something else entirely. I've been eating the thing for years and I still haven't decided. That ambiguity is part of why it belongs in this series.
This is the second entry in B2A2, Best Burger in Ann Arbor. After the Raven's Club smash burger, which was a study in restraint and technique, I wanted to go somewhere structurally different. Frita Batidos is about as far from a dark cocktail bar as you can get while staying on the same block of downtown.
The Frita
The patty is a blend of chorizo and beef, seasoned enough that you taste spice and pork fat before you taste the beef. It's not a neutral canvas the way a smash burger is. The Raven's Club burger lets the sear and the beef do the talking. The frita has opinions before you add anything to it.
Then there are the shoestring fries. On the burger. This is the detail that trips people up when they haven't been here before. A tangle of thin, crisp fries sits on top of the patty, inside the bun. It sounds like a stunt, but it works because of what it does to the texture. You get the soft egg bun, the seasoned meat, and then this layer of crunch that changes the bite completely. Every mouthful has something going on. There is no moment where you're just chewing bread and beef.
The bun is soft, eggy, and slightly sweet. It compresses around the patty without falling apart, which is harder to pull off than it sounds when you've got fries stacked on top adding structural chaos.
A drizzle of sauce ties it together. The whole thing costs around $10, which is roughly half of what a comparable plate costs at a sit-down restaurant.
The Batido
At Raven's Club, I said order a cocktail. Here, order a batido.
The tropical shakes are thick and cold and built from real fruit. Mango is the safe pick and a good one. Guava has more personality. They are sweet, but they work next to the spice in the frita the way the La Fresquita worked next to the smash burger at Raven's Club. The drink resets your palate. It cools the chorizo heat and gives you a reason to take another bite.
You could get a beer instead. But you'd be wrong.
The Room
Frita Batidos at 117 W Washington St is small, loud, and bright. The walls are colorful. The music is up. You order at the counter, find a seat if one exists, and eat food that was designed to be eaten standing on a street corner in Havana. The experience does not ask you to linger. It asks you to eat and enjoy it and make room for the next person.
This is a different kind of meal than Raven's Club. There's no bartender crafting something behind a dim bar. There are no cloth napkins. You're eating a $10 sandwich with your hands while someone's bag bumps your chair, and somehow the food is serious enough to justify a spot in a best-burger conversation. That contrast says something about what we're actually measuring in B2A2.
Is It a Burger?
I keep coming back to this question because it matters for the series. If we're only counting traditional beef patties on buns, then the frita is a guest entry. It's Cuban street food with its own lineage that predates the American hamburger. Eve Aronoff Fernandez built Frita Batidos in 2010 around this dish, drawing on more than 25 years in professional kitchens and formal culinary training. She didn't set out to make a burger. She set out to make a frita.
But the Michigan Daily has been giving Frita Batidos their Best Burger award every year since 2014. When Aronoff Fernandez opened a Brooklyn location last October, The Lo Times named it Best New Burger in NYC. The people have voted, and they're calling it a burger.
I think the honest answer is that the frita occupies its own category, and B2A2 is better for including it. A series that only compares smash burgers to smash burgers is a series that runs out of things to say. The interesting question is not which burger has the best sear. It's what a great burger can be.
Where It Fits
The Raven's Club smash burger is pure technique. Thin patties, hard sear, clean flavors, everything in its place. The frita is personality. It's spiced, layered, a little chaotic, and unmistakably its own thing.
If I'm being honest, I would order both of them again tomorrow. The Raven's Club burger for a Tuesday night when I want a good cocktail and a quiet meal. The frita for a Saturday afternoon when I want to eat something with my hands and not think about it too hard.
Two entries in, and B2A2 already has range.
This is part of our ongoing series. Read the full tracker: Best Burger in Ann Arbor (B2A2): The Running List.
Frita Batidos is at 117 W Washington St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Also in Detroit and Brooklyn.