America's best grilling restaurants for Independence Day and beyond

The scene: The Fourth of July is the single most popular day of the year to barbecue in the backyard, according to a recent lifestyle study by the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association (HPBA). But some people would still rather eat out, and the rest of the year, especially in winter or with bad weather, it’s nice to be able to have someone else do the cooking for you.

Burgers and hot dogs lead the pack at home, and while some grill-centric restaurants specialize in one or two items, most that take the time to cook over a live fire or gas grill offer a lot more, from chicken to steak to pork chops, and as Great American Bites recently explored, demand for and interest in bison is at a new high.

But whatever is cooking, the HPBA survey shows the number one reason for grilling according to 71% of those polled — was improved flavor. So while most restaurants don’t grill, if you want a bit of smoke, flame, stripes or char on your food, you need to find one that does. This column has visited several notable grilling spots over the years, so with the holiday weekend coming, we look back at the best of the best.

Fire: If there is one restaurant group that is truly synonymous with this niche, it is the Weber Grill Restaurant, with locations in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, Lombard, Ill., and Schaumburg, Ill. The restaurants are owned by the world’s most famous maker of gas and charcoal grills, Chicago-based Weber, and inside the open kitchens, chefs cook away over open flames on multiple Weber grills, especially the company’s signature charcoal kettle. It’s all about the grilling here they even host classes. The places are surprisingly upscale, more steakhouse than fast casual, with full service, cloth napkins, fancy wine glasses and well-trained staff multi-course chef’s menu dinners with wine pairings are even offered. Yes, the Weber Grill serves burgers and beers (mostly microbrews), but the menu is elaborate, with standards including baby back ribs, beef brisket and beer can chicken, while more esoteric options include an Italian-style half chicken grilled under a brick, plank grilled bourbon salmon, cheese crusted tilapia, bone-in smoked pork chop, and Weber’s tasty signature dish, grilled meatloaf, which adds a smoky charred flavor to a favorite comfort food. The burger page is long and varied, with options like the French Onion burger, with a red wine demi-glace reduction and a mix of grilled smoked onions and fried onions, topped with Swiss. The Farm Burger mixes beef and lamb, topped with bacon, goat cheese and dried tomatoes. There are even turkey and black bean burger options, and veggie burger fans rave about the latter.

There are several other standout restaurants whose entire concepts revolve around fire, most notably the exceptional Hitching Post II, in Buellton, Calif. The restaurant became famous thanks to important scenes filmed there in the romantic Wine Country comedy Sideways (Virginia Madsen played a waitress), but its real life fame is as the No. 1 spot for Santa Maria barbecue, a unique way of cooking indigenous to Central California. Sometimes called the fifth regional barbecue style (along with Memphis, Carolina, Texas and Kansas City styles), Santa Maria barbecue traces its roots to beef cooked over open fires by Mexican cowboys, or vaqueros, who worked the local ranches in the 19th century. Vaqueros favored a lesser known roast, tri-tip, and always burned native California red oak, now the trademark of Santa Maria-style barbecue. Meats are seasoned with dry spice rubs and often marinated while cooking with a vinegar and oil mixture. The other four barbecue styles favor closed smokers with no direct flame, but this is a fiery grilling style, and at the Hitching Post II, steaks, chops and much more are cooked on a grate in full view. (Pair with Hitching Post II's own acclaimed pinot noir).

Just last week we visited Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Mich., where many items are cooked on a live fire grill burning oak in an open kitchen. Natural steaks and specialty burgers are extremely popular, freshly ground in house from pasture raised, drug-free, grass-fed beef. Condiments, from bacon to cheese, are the finest artisanal products, and buns are homemade. Some of the impeccably sourced fresh seafood and naturally raised heritage breed pork also hits the grill.

Canada’s Alberta produces some of the best quality, natural, grass-fed beef on the continent, and Calgary’s Charbar takes advantage with a delicious take on Argentinean-style live fire cooking. The centerpiece of the open kitchen is a bulky steel classic Argentine asado-style grill, with heavy steel wheels and chains to lower and raise the grates over burning logs. The signature is a large Flintstones-style 60-day dry aged, two pound porterhouse steak for sharing.

Burgers: Great American Bites has covered many a burger — griddled, steamed and even fried but it’s hard to go wrong with flame grilling. The best at cooking over fire include Gordon Ramsay BurGR, in the Planet Hollywood casino right on the Las Vegas Strip. Fire is the theme here, from the entry sculpture, a 30-foot piece of “fire art,” to the wood burning grills in the open kitchen to the menu, much of which is cooked over open flame, while spice also plays a big part. Ramsay leaves the seeds in his jalapeño poppers, which few places do, for “one fiery surprise.” Wings are “Hellfire" wings, and Devil Dawgs are all-natural beef hot dogs simmered in hot sauce and finished on the grill. But with the possible exception of the decadent pudding shakes, it is the very good burgers that steal the show, thanks to first-rate fresh ingredients. A mixture of ground brisket, chuck and short rib is brushed with imported English Devonshire butter on the grill, over a mix of apple and alderwood. Brioche buns are excellent and baked fresh daily. The burgers are juicy, flavorful, meaty and perfectly cooked to order, while the combinations offered are fantastic.

Atlanta’s famous Vortex (two locations) takes burger gimmickry to a new level with mega-combinations like the signature Double Coronary Bypass, featuring two half-pound patties, eight slices of bacon, two fried eggs and six slices of American cheese served not on a bun — between two grilled cheese sandwiches. The Triple Bypass is even bigger, and there are 14 Signature Burgers in all, like Hell’s Fury (pepper jack cheese, habanero relish, roasted jalapeño and Atomic Death hot sauce), Rebel Outlaw (pulled pork, bacon, cheddar and house teriyaki outlaw sauce), and Fat Elvis (peanut butter, bacon and fried bananas). What sets the Vortex burgers apart is their quality, extra-large 8-ounce patties of fresh ground 100% sirloin, hand formed and grilled over live fire.

Barbecue: Most great American barbecue is slow smoked using indirect heat, not open flame, but there are two very notable exceptions among our favorite Great American Bites spots. Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, Texas, an Austin suburb, is perennially ranked among the world’s best barbecue joints, and while known for the Lone Star State’s signature, brisket, it is also famous for a less common offering, giant beef spare ribs, and more recently added even rarer bison ribs. The Salt Lick’s family owners came to Texas by wagon train from South Carolina in 1867, cooking over open fires as they went, creating a unique amalgam of Carolina and Texas barbecue styles plus live fire grilling. The restaurant is a sprawling indoor/outdoor complex that seats 800, but its centerpiece is a large circular stone fire pit, on which chefs (in defiance of southern barbecue tradition) sear brisket, ribs and other meats over open flame, recreating wagon train cooking, before finishing with the more typical slow cooking associated with championship barbecue.

Rib specialist Dreamland BBQ is another temple of the genre, a true barbecue legend, that for decades served nothing but pork spareribs – not even sides — at its original location in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The story goes that in a dream, God told late brick mason John “Big Daddy” Bishop, that he should open a barbecue place, so he started cooking ribs in his front yard in 1958, where the first restaurant now stands, hence the name Dreamland. Today there are satellite locations, but his family still runs the operation. It is arguably the single most famous Eastern rib joint, and the ribs are big and meaty, even by full-sized spare rib standards — no St. Louis cut or baby backs here. Most unusually, they are not smoked, but rather “hickory fire grilled” on a brick cooking pit out back, and cooked in just about an hour (versus six-plus for slow smoking). While not tough by any means, they are not as tender as most ribs, really meaty, satisfying, juicy, delicious and addictive. The original finally added sausage, while the seven other locations have bigger menus including pork and chicken. The slogan at Dreamland is “Ain’t nothing like ‘em nowhere,” and that’s pretty accurate.

Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an e-mail at drhdwisusanto@gmail.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.