Very Big Indeed

There has been much buzz online recently about the new sandwich making the rounds from McDonald’s. Called the Big Arch, the burger has actually been around for a couple of years in other territories, first debuting in Portugal and Canada in 2024 before moving into the U.K. as well in 2025. But it’s finally made its way to the U.S., showing up nationwide at the start of March, 2026, and with it, every food blogger and taste maker has had to weigh in on the sandwich. That, naturally, includes us (even if we’re less of a food blogger and more a “this was tasty, let’s discuss” kind of review site).

Pitched as something of a “restaurant quality” burger, this isn’t actually McDonald’s first attempt at a “premium burger” experience. Whenever the chain tries to launch some new burger, the first thing brought up is the McD.L.T., a burger that came in a double-sided styrofoam container, with both a hot side (for the bottom bun and burger) and a cold side (for the lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickles, and condiments). The burger was popular, but regulatory pressure over the wasteful styrofoam eventually killed the burger. It was then followed by other attempts including the McLean Deluxe (a lower fat burger), the Big N’ Tasty (with included special smoky sauce), and the Arch Deluxe (with bacon and a special secret sauce). None of these ever quite caught on the way the chain wanted, and all of them eventually were phased on.

What this clearly taught McDonald’s was that while shoppers were looking for something from the chain that could compete with the Whopper (just about every new McDonald’s burger singles out the Whopper as a direct competitor), nothing has proven to have the same staying power as McDonald’s own special creation, the Big Mac. Thus, with their new burger, the Big Arch, they’ve effectively made a “Big Mac, but Bigger.” Much, much bigger.

The Big Arch consists of two all-beef patties, quarter pounder patties, three slices of white cheddar, raw and fried onions, lettuce, pickles and "Big Arch sauce", all served on a special bun seeded with both sesame and poppy seeds. It is, by measure, the biggest burger served by the restaurant, and, for just the burger alone, it clocks in as a hefty 1,020 calories. If you slap on fries and a drink, your meal could top out at a whopping 1,800 with large fries and a drink. That’s close to the full caloric intake for an adult human for an entire day, which is… pretty stunning. This is a large burger, but also (many would argue) a very unhealthy one.

That didn’t stop me from ordering up the Big Arch as a meal, although I was somewhat smarter about it. For this visit my wife and I coordinated, and along with a medium Big Arch Meal we also grabbed a medium 10-piece nuggets meal. We then split things up, cutting the burger into quarters and divvying up the burger, fries, and nuggets over two meals for each of us to try and reduce the overall caloric overload we were setting ourselves up for. Even then I’m sure this wasn’t the healthiest option imaginable, but we wanted to try it and not destroy ourselves entirely. If I’d sat down to eat an entire Big Arch in a single sitting, the resulting food coma afterwards would have made me a rival for Sleeping Beauty, I’m sure (although I’m not nearly as pretty even before I pack in 1,800 calories in a single sitting).

Reports on the internet have been mixed for this new creation. There are those that rave about the new burger, while others have called it decidedly “mid”. I think opinion is really going to come down to how much you like McDonald’s burgers in general and whether you vibe with the way the restaurant creates its food. For me, the highlight of the meal was… the nuggets, which I think says a lot about this burger. I certainly don’t hate McDonald’s, and even I have to agree that sometimes their shittier burgers (because, let’s be honest about their quality) do hit the spot. But when it comes to this burger (even before we discuss the price), the changes made just aren’t that interesting, and the overall experience was, in fact, pretty darn average.

Its basic conception is that it’s a Big Mac, but bigger, with some slightly fancier ingredients. You have your double patties, your lettuce, your cheese, your sauce. If you slapped an extra bun in the middle (which this burger skips over) you’d think you were eating a Bigger Mac (or the Big Big Mac, aka the Grand Mac, which is just a Double Quarter Pounder-sized Big Mac commonly served overseas). Some of the ingredients are slightly different, like the white cheddar instead of the yellow American normally served, or the new, special Big Arch sauce in place of the Big Mac’s “special sauce” (which we all know is just Thousand Island).

It’s the small changes that are supposed to make the big difference here, but I think it’s actually where the burger fell apart for me. For starters, the white cheddar doesn’t taste like cheddar at all. Cheddar has a specific bite, a sharpness to it, that is entirely missing from whatever chemical concoction McDonald’s is calling “white cheddar” here. In reality this cheese doesn’t taste substantially different from McDonald’s usual American cheese, so either they simply didn’t put the yellow dye in their cheese and are calling it “white cheddar”, or they bought the cheapest, grossest cheddar imaginable for this. Either way, the cheese doesn’t taste right.

The burger also has crispy fried onions on it, making me think McDonald’s was trying to take a page from some of the special Whopper creations Burger King has done in recent memory. Fried onions are a common special ingredient over at BK, and people do seem to like them. The trick is that you need a fair number of them on a burger to make them stand out. A small sprinkling isn’t going to cut it, and that’s, unfortunately, all McDonald’s includes on the Big Arc. It feels like they hedged their bets, doing both raw and fried onions, hoping to get the onion flavor on there while still having a talking point about these fried bits, but neither really stand out on this burger. A tiny toss of onion confetti on the burger doesn’t mean anything if it’s not substantial, and McDonald’s skimped out hard here.

Then there’s the Big Arch sauce, which is some kind of tomato-y version of the Big Mac sauce. This restaurant calls it a mixture of mustard, pickle, and tomato flavors, but it really doesn’t taste like much of anything. The best I’d call it is ketchup-plus, and that’s being kind. There isn’t nearly as much sauce on this burger as the Big Mac gets, and with a bigger this thick and heavy the sauce (as with so many other ingredients here) kind of gets lost. I noticed it was there, and it added a little tang, but not enough that I would say I actually enjoyed it. I would have ratherc had Big Mac sauce, or just ketchup and mayo, instead.

The biggest selling point about this burger, then, is that it’s big. It’s Quarter Pounder sized, but when you think about it, that’s not really that special because McDonald’s has, you know, the Quarter Pounder. They already have a burger this size, so why make something else. They could simply release a special edition Quarter Pounder with bonus ingredients and get the same effect (and hell, in the past, they even have done that). It feels like this burger wasn’t made to be special, not in quality, but just to drum up talking points and get people talking about the restaurant… which, yes, that did work at least. But the conversation is going to die off eventually, and my feeling is that the burger will follow it soon after back into the dustbin of history.

And all of that is before we get to the price. In my area the Big Arch cost just over ten bucks, and that was just for the sandwich. All in, with fries and a drink, was well north of fourteen dollars, just for one meal. Yes, my wife and I shared it, but we’re not normal. Most people will get this for themselves, and they’ll be paying out the nose to do it, all for a burger that isn’t nearly as interesting to eat as it is to discuss. McDonald’s got their talking points, and people are all abuzz about it, but end of the day this is a pretty average burger with a high calorie count and an almost as high price tag. Some may love it, but I don’t think the average consumer is going to go into a McDonald’s wanting one of these even a couple of months from now. It’s too much for too little, really.