βurgerβusiness

No, no, the celebrity-chef burger romance isn’t over. If you thought every high-profile chef had opened a burger bistro by now, you’ve overlooked a few.

● One is Emeril Lagasse. To his credit, Lagasse doesn’t open restaurants in rapid succession, as some other name-brand chefs do. With his Food Network celebrity and keen business sense, he could open in every city in America, but he moves slowly and carefully. In May he opened Emeril’s Chop House in the new Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem in Bethlehem, Pa. Emeril’s already planning a next step: He plans to add an upscale burger bar in the casino this fall. No word on what the Bam-Man intends to name it. Here’s hoping it’s more dynamic than Table 10, the name of the eatery he opened last year in The Palazzo Las Vegas casino-hotel.

● Speaking of rapid succession, Todd English, who spends a lot of time on HSN hawking his cookware, also is getting in the burger game. He’ll open a burger-centric bistro in Boston’s Theater District this fall, the Boston Herald reports. English (left) is one busy guy, having opened Asian-fusion Cha at the new Donovan House hotel in Washington, D.C., and announced a Las Vegas outpost of L.A. restaurant Beso with business partner Eva Longoria. Meanwhile, he’s cutting ties to Todd English’s Bonfire in Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel.

● Chef Michael Kornick, whose mk restaurant is one of Chicago’s finest, says his DMK Burger Bar will open in October. A spring ’09 opening had originally been envisioned.

● Tim and Liza Goodell‘s Domaine Restaurants have added a Huntington Beach, Calif., location of their Twenty Five Degrees concept–promoted as “a new twist on the local burger joint”–in Los Angeles. Newport Beach reportedly is next.

● And we’re all still waiting for Thomas Keller‘s Burgers and Half Bottles and Rachael Ray‘s long-promised Manhattan burger joint that she famously predicted would be a “’60s back-in-the-day Rat Pack-y kind of hangout.” Maybe next summer.