Is there any way I can up the BTUs on my stove in an urban rental apartment?

See subject. I’m pretty sure you can’t, but I’m interested in why, and although illegal if it could be done (which I’m not going to do :)).

I mean, restaurants are in residential buildings, and damn they’ve got great BTUs.

You need a wider pipe delivering more gas and you need a stove engineered to take advantage of that. People often retrofit houses to put professional stoves in, but to do it in a rental apartment would be difficult. To do it properly you might also need some kind of automatic fire extinguisher and have the stove vented to the outside.

For money anything can be done. Well almost.