PurposeThis article explores consumers' attitudes to the trend of gourmet burgers, notably the gourmet burgers' combination of highbrow food (gourmet) and lowbrow food (fast food). The authors use the case of the NOMA cheeseburger from the iconic New Nordic restaurant NOMA.Design/methodology/approachThe data set consists of interviews (n = 20) with urban Danish consumers attending the NOMA burger pop-up.FindingsThe analysis highlights an acceptance among informants of “gourmetfied” burgers. This signals a change in the culinary status of burgers in Danish food culture. The authors also discovered some ambivalence in relation to the highbrow-lowbrow negotiations: while all informants celebrate the casualization of NOMA during the burger pop-up, half of the informants found the burger underwhelming: it did not live up to the edginess of the NOMA brand.Practical implicationsThe authors believe this research can inform people working with culinary highbrow-lowbrow mix in their food designs, notably in relation to developing and matching the relation between symbolic and material aspects of the food design.Originality/valueThe authors argue that the concept of transgression can help us theorize how consumers accept, refuse, and negotiate boundaries in relation to gourmet burgers, and more generally between food consumption mixing highbrow and lowbrow elements. More particularly, the authors propose to distinguish between symbolic, social, and material transgressions. This perspective might also be interesting for practitioners in the field.

This article argues that waiting in line can exist as an integral part of a food experience. The article offers a new perspective on rethinking queueing and understanding queueing as an important part of the restaurant experience. The study provides an example of downplaying the exclusiveness of fine dining through the interpersonal queueing experience. In practical terms, the article examines the global trend of opening a food event during the COVID–19 pandemic, focusing on a specific case, draws up recommendations for restaurant design, and highlights the relevance of having different design strategies in uncertain times such as the COVID–19 pandemic. Consequently, the article contributes to the growing corpus of studies in food experience design by focusing on the overlooked aspect of waiting in line. The empirical example used is from a major ongoing study on the specular transformation of the iconic New Nordic restaurant NOMA (Copenhagen) in spring 2020 at the time of the first post–COVID–19 reopening of restaurants. This world–renowned restaurant―known for local, seasonal, foraged, vegetable–focused cuisine―was transformed into a burger joint serving only a cheeseburger and a veggie burger. Through such transformation, the eating experience was radically altered. Interviews with twenty guests about their experience show that waiting in line―rather than being an obstacle as one might imagine―became central to the overall experience for most visitors. The “waiting–in–line” experience helped 1) create more informal interpersonal exchanges between NOMA staff and guests, and 2) build up an atmosphere of anticipation and excitement, which added to the experience of eating in NOMA’s garden or neighboring surroundings. The case could be understood as part of an overall trend to play with access and accessibility to food experiences on the fine–dining scene.