McDonald’s new Big Arch burger puts the Big Mac on notice

The Big Arch is a burger for its times, which is not to say it’s the burger for its times.

Two months after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. flipped the old food pyramid on its head, encouraging Americans to eat more meat and cut way back on refined carbohydrates, McDonald’s has introduced the country to a burger that at first sniff seems ready-made for the Make America Healthy Again movement and its many contradictions. The Big Arch groans under the weight of its ground beef, which more than doubles the protein packed into a Big Mac while eliminating the extraneous middle bun that often gums up the works of Mickey D’s signature sandwich.

Nevermind that the Big Arch, with buns big and sturdy enough to contain seven elements of varying juiciness, remains a carb-o-phobe’s nightmare. This burger is here to deliver a message, and it’s not subtle: Meat and cheese are back, baby, and McDonald’s is not afraid to serve up two steaming quarter-pound patties encased in three gooey layers of white cheddar. And that’s just a start for this riotous collision of ingredients.

McDonald’s is going big with the Big Arch. “Like, really BIG,” it touts on a corporate fact sheet. The chain is not even trying to conceal its excess. It’s flaunting it at every turn: big size. Big flavor. Big calorie counts to satisfy the “extra hungry.”

The company tosses around the adjective, of course, to invoke the Big Mac — but also to put it on notice. The Big Arch is supposed to be a limited-time offering in the United States, yet after trial runs beginning in 2024 in Europe and Canada, the burger has already made the permanent menu in Britain and Ireland. It’s impossible to imagine the Big Mac could lose cultural currency in its country of origin, but then again, we’re all susceptible to Shiny Object Syndrome, especially when that shiny object is sheathed in three slices of cheese.

Even the company’s chief executive entered the “go big” game with a tasting video that went viral for all the wrong reasons. “Holy cow!” exclaims Chris Kempczinski, doing his best Milhouse impression from “The Simpsons.” “God, that is a big burger.” An entire cottage industry has emerged to mock the hostage-like quality of Kempczinski’s video, as if there’s someone just off-camera ready to expose Mayor McCheese’s dirty secrets unless the CEO takes a bite of the Big Arch.

When you purchase the Big Arch and the Big Mac in one sitting — which I don’t recommend unless persuaded by an editor or a hungry Doberman — the latter’s cardboard box looks tiny compared with the one housing the BA. The Big Mac box is so puny, in fact, that it looks like a toy you might find inside a Happy Meal. Accordingly, the Big Arch packs considerably more calories (1,020) and fat (65 grams) than its more famous cousin. (See the full nutritional information below.) Every order of a Big Arch should automatically include a two-hour window for the inevitable whole-body crash that I experienced after eating.

The architecture of the Big Arch is a thing of beauty, at least when it’s not prepared in haste. The toasted bun is mottled with both sesame and poppy seeds, giving off multigrain-bread vibes amid the burger’s greasy intemperance. Under the hood, you’ll find not just those quarter-pound patties and cheese but also pickles, shredded lettuce, Big Arch sauce and two types of onions, raw and fried. The new condiment, a concoction seemingly poised to supplant McDonald’s “special sauce” in the public imagination, is a welcome departure from all the Thousand Island dressing knockoffs that slather buns across the known burger universe. The sauce is sweet and savory, concealing a cache of tomato paste for an added umami kick.

On the face of it, the Big Arch would seem to have an immediate advantage over the Big Mac for one simple reason: the beef. Eight years ago, McDonald’s replaced its frozen patties with fresh ones in the Quarter Pounder; the switch transformed a mostly mediocre burger into the fast-food equivalent of destination dining. But lately I’ve noticed a decline in the ground beef. I ordered a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe — the closest thing to a Big Arch — in the days proceeding the new sandwich’s debut. The two-ounce patties had the texture of synthetic rubber, with virtually the same flavor profile.

I didn’t have the same problem with my first Big Arch. The beef glistened and even sported shades of pink in its innermost reaches, suggesting a patty that had been cooked fresh to order. The burger itself was well-proportioned, its garnishes and condiments distributed in quantities that accented the beef with bursts of fried onion, concentrated tomato, raw onion and briny pickle. The Big Arch was doing its best smokehouse burger impression, and without a real one to compare it against, I was willing to buy into it. I almost felt sorry for the Big Mac: It was a sponge-cake burger by comparison.

But my second Big Arch was a disappointment. The burger was constructed as if the kitchen had to ration out ingredients: The sauce and fried onions were so frugally applied that they basically disappeared into the burger without detection. The beef patties had skipped the medium-well stage and went straight into Goodyear territory. I preferred the Big Mac on this trip. At least I knew what I was getting with it.

So what’s the takeaway? That McDonald’s, even with all its money and brainpower, can’t transform a human workforce into a numbingly robotic entity, consistent across every location? No, I think it’s something more telling: that McDonald’s is willing to introduce a burger apparently aimed at eclipsing its signature one, all in the name of progress and profitability. Now that’s a big move.

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Big Arch: 11.5 ounces; $9.49. Prices may vary by location.

1,020 calories, 59 g carbohydrates, 175 mg cholesterol, 65 g fat, 3 g fiber, 53 g protein, 25 g saturated fat, 1,760 mg sodium, 15 g sugar

Big Mac: 7.4 ounces; $7.29. Prices may vary by location.

580 calories, 45 g carbohydrates, 85 mg cholesterol, 34 g fat, 3 g fiber, 25 g protein, 11 g saturated fat, 1,060 mg sodium, 7 g sugar