The Cheval Blanc Burger

Serve when

Serve it with your best bottle poured into whatever cup is nearest — the film's final lesson, eaten at a plastic table.

In the movie

Theatrical

~01:58:30 The ending: Miles takes his 1961 Château Cheval Blanc to a fast-food burger joint and drinks it from a styrofoam cup with a burger and onion rings — the special occasion he finally stops waiting for.

The saddest, wisest food scene in the film: a five-figure Bordeaux drunk in secret with a burger, because the perfect occasion never came and life kept happening. The pairing is deliberately 'wrong' — and the film dares you to say the wine was wasted.

Ingredients

1 beef patty (⅓ lb
80/20), griddled with a hard crust
1 soft seeded bun, toasted
American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup and mustard
Onion rings on the side — canon
The best wine you own, poured without ceremony

Method

Season the patty and griddle it hard, 3 minutes a side, until cooked through — 160°F for ground beef — with the cheese melted at the end.
Build the burger fully dressed — this is a proper fast-food burger, not a cheffed one.
Fry or buy the onion rings; the movie is not precious about it.
Pour your best bottle into the nearest cup. Styrofoam is thematically correct.
Eat, sip, and notice that the wine is still magnificent. That's the point.