The venerated marriage between beer and burgers remains on honeymoon at Neighborhood, where customers wash down simple food with prized craft ales, and in some cases, smuggle in their own ketchup.

Neighborhood made its mark a year ago on this fleeting stretch of G Street, which keeps a toe in the Gaslamp District and an ankle in the East Village. Whatever the technical location, the joint lives up to its name by bridging together the two locales with a style that is neither dive-y nor arrogant.

Owner Arsalun Tafazoli is a law school dropout who feared incurring horrendous debt if he stayed enrolled. A stint in bartending combined with global traveling prompted his fascination over the complexities of beer as well as the many labels that originate from our region. At present, his burgeoning beer list includes 28 brands on tap (17 of them locally brewed) and about 40 by the bottle. All are rather engaging if you exclude the footnoted labels such as Bud, Miller, Corona, et al.

In matching up the culinary components for his venture, Tafazoli collaborated with “chef-friend” Jesse Cruz, who previously opened 1500 Ocean and a few Cohn restaurants. Thus a menu of sophisticated burgers, hearty salads, California-style wraps and comforting entrees was born.

Yet when it comes to the burgers, Tafazoli adheres to certain specifications almost stubbornly. He scoffs, for instance, at using ground beef, which he feels carries a shoddy stigma. His patties are made instead with coarse-ground sirloin; this after experimenting with Kobe and Angus beef over the past year.

In a more radical tactic, he doesn’t offer ketchup. Tafazoli insists that “it doesn’t go with the chemistry of what we do.” Newbies to Neighborhood, he adds, occasionally get so offended by the absence of ketchup they walk out. Some sneak in little condiment packets from other eateries while most patrons lawfully succumb.

My lunch companion, a mean-eating steak machine, loved the sirloin flavor and dense texture of the burgers that we tried. I was more impressed by their various toppings, which tasted so carefully orchestrated that I didn’t for a nanosecond yearn for Heinz.

The 777 burger, named after this street address, is crowned with plum tomato confit that oozes a juicy tang over the patty. The confit’s acidity (and lack of fat in the meat) is neutralized by béarnaise sauce. A pile of baby spinach under the chewy ciabatta-like roll clenched the deal. More robust tasting was the Neighborhood burger, with spicy arugula greens giving way to a mantle of caramelized onions and bleu and gruyere cheeses. Indeed, Tafazoli teaches us to leave good enough alone.

There’s also a wild mushroom burger with Swiss cheese and marsala wine sauce; a veggie burger; and a Cajun burger topped with pickled radishes, onions, cucumbers and jalapeno mayo.

Beer seemed the natural choice to everything we ate, although Neighborhood’s wine list reveals some of my personal faves, such as jammy Duckhorn Merlot from Napa ($84 a bottle) or floral, buttery Sonoma Cutrer Chardonnay at only $10 a glass.

Delierium Tremens from Belgium is a strong pale ale considered by connoisseurs to be one of the best beers in the world. Refreshing, fruity and complex, it sang not only to our burgers, but duly complimented an order of jalapeno mac-and-cheese we tried, cutting through its richness like a jackhammer on concrete. From our own backyard, we sampled the Mission Brewing Hefweizen, a liquid dessert of sorts revealing orangey overtones and creamy thickness. The beer list is sectioned into user-friendly categories, telling you which beers are wheaty, fruity, malty or spicy, not to mention their alcohol contents if you’re counting percentage points.

Everything on the lunch card is priced at $10 or below, such as the big and spunky drunken pear salad containing pears marinated in red wine and sugar – or the strawberry-spinach salad adorned with several balls of crispy goat cheese. Both are only $8. There’s also a fancy-pants version of grilled cheese made with gruyere and cheddar that sells for $9. It includes a side of pleasing tomato bisque that, dare I say, served as quasi ketchup as we dipped wedges of the sandwich into it.

Neighborhood’s interior is visually stimulating. Sigmund Freud is memorialized by a large painting that looks over the dining room’s bare wood tables. In his hand is a burger that looks remarkably like the ones served here. Equally striking is a floor-to-ceiling mosaic of San Diego’s skyline, meticulously constructed with small Italian tiles in nine different shades of white, gray and black.

Tafazoli has done well for this urban neighborhood, giving us a uniquely laidback joint that is part watering hole, part restaurant. With that at our disposal, who needs ketchup?