I confess, I love hamburgers. No matter if it's the fanciest or the greasiest in town, big or small, I ate them all. Throw some pickled gherkins on it and I'll love you forever. But nowadays, older and wiser... hmmm, let me rephrase it... older and wider, I happen to like my burgers as simple and as honest as they get.

Jun Sakamoto's hamburgers are without any doubt one of the best in São Paulo and if you know this city's hamburgers like I do, you know how difficult it is to make such a statement. When I was invited by Jun and Ambiente de Criação to illustrate the Hamburgueria Nacional menus I was in heaven. I felt every single cell in my body finding an excuse to throw me out of the house and inside a cab straight in the direction of those tasty and succulent burgers.

Another thing that I love about the Jun's restaurant is its architecture. Clean and with lots of wood and plants. It was perfect for the menu, so we decided to make it the starting point of our work. Joined by the amazing colorist Marcus Penna, we created this weird David Hockney like panoramic view of the interior showing a glimpse of the bar, the tables and the outer garden and thru the main window a preserved Pau-Ferro tree, symbol of the restaurant. For the delivery menu we decided to show an outside view of the front of the restaurant with a delivery boy in his bicycle. Jun was very clear about the use of bicycles for his delivery service and I find it a very brave and respectable decision. With the main part done, we finished the job by creating the kids menu with different games each.

Time has passed and I decided to get back to the restaurant to check the printed menus. While I was there I decided to grab a burger... why not? And opening the menu I found something that I was not expecting. They included a paragraph that reads:

Proud to make it different. We all have our specialties, that thing that only we can do so well. Kako, who illustrated our menu, is to draw. Ours is to make a tasty burger broiled on the salamander broiler.

 Itadakimasu!