A Talk With Q MEX’s Head Chef Marcus Medina on Their Juicy Burger Cup Win

Katie Coy | Nov 22, 2023 11:38 am | Add a comment | 197 reads

Last Friday (Nov 17), Q MEX was crowned the 2023 Juicy Burger Cup Champion in what was perhaps our closest ever final to date, beating Jing-A by a narrow 1.4 percent. However, it was Q MEX’s victory over six-time Burger Cup winners SLOWBOAT in the Elite 8 that was the true shock of the competition.

Q MEX was already a Juicy Burger Cup Champion, having won the cup back in 2017, but their triumph in the Elite 8 and even the championship round still came as a surprise to many, including Q MEX themselves. Shortly after the Beijinger delivered the Juicy Burger Cup trophy to Q MEX we talked to Head Chef Marcus Medina (on the right in the cover image) about the win and what he has to say to people who think a Mexican restaurant shouldn’t be serving burgers.

Firstly, congratulations on the Juicy Burger Cup win! How does it feel to win the Juicy Burger Cup this year?
Well, it's really, just I would say overwhelming. I didn't expect to get here because there were so many tough competitors who have won the cup before. The competition is intense, Beijing is an incredibly competitive burger town. There are so many great burgers out there, so many great competitors and so many places that are really focused on burgers. So yeah, it was overwhelming this year and shocking too; the stars just aligned and the gods were kind to us.

How does winning this year compare to when you won in 2017?
I think that time it also was a very fast rise to the top. We went from making it in the top 32, then to 16, then to four all of a sudden. It took us a few years to get up there, but we were succeeding and we were doing better every year and then we won it! That was also a great surprise, there were a lot of competitors and very good players making burgers. Though definitely not on the same scale as now, the scale has changed completely.

I’m still in shock and need to process the win in my mind. I really didn’t think it was going to happen, I was thinking "ok great, we’re going to be number two" or before it was "great we’re going to be number four," you know thinking like that. So the fact that we came in first is, yeah shocking.

How has Q MEX changed since your last win and can you tell us a bit about the history of your burgers?
I think we were just one restaurant back then. We had Taqueria as well but they didn’t serve burgers, so we were just operating out of [the Sanlitun] store. You know I keep telling everybody how when we first opened we put together the menu for this restaurant in a week, but the burger took another week to work on, just the burger. And that was still not anywhere close to what it is today.

We're constantly monitoring it and adjusting it and now we have the resources to really hone in on it and spend a lot of time thinking about it. You know we think a lot about all the food, but the burger is still something that that we spend a lot of time thinking about.

How did it feel when you managed to beat six-time champion SLOWBOAT?
I was shocked that we got past them. However, we do have a network of friends and burger fans who come specifically to Q MEX for the burger. All you have to do is go to our Solana branch and you see all these people that are there ordering burgers, you see it here as well, but the scale that it happens [at Solana] is much higher. I’m not going to lie, SLOWBOAT make an awesome burger and the fact we were able to get past them was a big achievement, a big achievement.

People were big fans of the Birria Burger, which you created for Juicy Burger Fest. Where did the idea for this come from?
We have a war room meeting every couple of weeks about burgers, literally! Now, we already had the birria being served at Q MEX Taqueria in our Birria Tacos so that was already part of our repertoire. So, in this meeting, someone came up with the idea of mixing it with a burger and I loved it, it just tasted amazing, so we went ahead and did it.

Will the Birria Burger become part of the regular menu?
It might become part of the regular menu. We’re always developing a lot of the burgers. There's the one burger we do on a melting cheese platter [Cheesy Double Cheeseburger RMB 88], so we have that one and now we have the Birria Burger [RMB 88]. We've got to make room for the huge success of the burgers, so we’ll see.

We’ve heard some burger fans say that don’t think a Mexican restaurant should do burgers, what do you say to them?
Well, my mother's one of them! But that wasn’t really applicable for a Mexican restaurant in China when we first opened because, and I’ll keep saying this, we wanted to be the most accessible Mexican restaurant. You have kids and you have families and they want to go to a Mexican restaurant but maybe not everyone even really knows what Mexican food is.

It’s not the same as it was 11 years ago, but we’re trying to be the most successful. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t know about Mexican food and is perhaps cautious about trying things, so having a burger on the menu makes it more accessible. However, now it's turned into something else. You have people, especially younger people, from the schools and international schools, whether they’re Chinese or foreign who come here for the burger.

Last question, aside from Q MEX, of course, what is your favorite burger in Beijing?
I mean, I hate to say it, but having lived in New York I have to say Shake Shack. Shake Shack makes a hell of a good burger. I don’t think it’s better than ours, that’s for sure, but it’s a really great burger. I also think Slider Nation has an interesting twist by doing sliders, that's a niche in the market.

But all the main burger places here are amazing. Of course, SLOWBOAT and Jing-A make great burgers and Goose Island as well. The competition is tough and it’s going to be really tough to try and win again next year because burgers are a very competitive market in Beijing. I’m very happy and grateful to the Beijinger for hosting the Burger Cup every year, it’s an institution in Beijing as are the Burger Festival and all the other festivals that you put on. It’s all so much fun and really exciting to participate in.

If you want to try one of Q MEX's burgers, they're available at all of the locations below: