One of many dozen burgers offered nightly at Sip & Guzzle.
Picture: Mike Bagale
Over the summer time, the chef Mike Bagale launched a brand new burger on the 19-month-old Sip & Guzzle, and he was clear with the employees about his objective: “I wished to create a line exterior once more.” Bagale’s plan has labored. At roughly 3:30 p.m. on a current Wednesday, individuals began queuing up on Sip & Guzzle’s sidewalk, almost all of them ready for a Tavern Burger, a patty of high-grade Japanese beef seared in tallow and French butter, topped with black-pepper sauce, smoked aïoli, pepper relish, and a sq. of Parmesan minimize to evoke a Kraft Single. “We serve 12 an evening as a result of it got here from necessity,” says Bagale, explaining that the patties are floor from the trim of Miyazaki A5 Wagyu that’s utilized in Sip & Guzzle’s $150 steak sandwich. The Tavern Burger is $35. “It’s solely a gimmick if the standard of the product just isn’t delivering,” Bagale says.
Though notable burgers are scattered throughout New York’s restaurant historical past (Minetta Tavern’s Black Label burger is a frequent reference level), it was Raoul’s that pioneered this restricted template with its bar-only Burger Au Poivre greater than a decade in the past. “We have been simply making 12 as a result of there are a dozen buns in a pack and we didn’t suppose we would have liked extra,” says Karim Raoul. As soon as the late meals author Josh Ozersky deemed it one of the best burger in America, Raoul’s calculus modified, however solely barely: “After the strains began forming, we stated, ‘Let’s simply restrict it to this or we’ll grow to be a burger restaurant.’”
After all, the one factor New Yorkers need greater than one thing scrumptious is one thing scrumptious that they’ll’t have. That is doubly true if the factor they’ll’t have just isn’t even listed on a menu. So it is sensible {that a} handful of recent eating places have not too long ago launched their very own elusive, quantity-restricted burgers, or saved them off menus fully and held them again for patrons who know to ask. If these burgers have a unifying theme past guidelines — limited-offering burgers can’t be modified; after they’re gone, they’re gone — it’s a deal with utilizing difficult method to create a well-known bundle with a bent towards decadence that might impress even a chef of Daniel Boulud’s standing.
The truth is, Boulud — whose luxurious “DB” burger as soon as bewitched this metropolis — is making an attempt his hand on the development, too. At his Le Gratin, an after–9 p.m.–solely Truffle Burger comes with a slab of fried pork stomach and a blanket of shaved black truffle. And he’s debating a return for the DB burger in some type or one other, despite the fact that the unique restaurant that provided it has closed. “Folks on a regular basis inform me, ‘You used to have a restaurant, and each time I might go there, I’d have the burger with the truffles,’’’ Boulud says. (The DB Burger’s signature indulgence was that it was filled with brief rib and foie gras, however friends have been additionally given the chance so as to add two layers of Périgord truffles, or to make it “Tremendous Royale” with 4 layers of truffles; truffles are a recurrent theme within the Boulud Gastronomic Universe.) “I believe I’m going to begin it once more. You’ll be able to simply possibly tease it and say, ‘Daniel can be beginning a restricted version someday within the fall.’” Now he simply wants to determine which of his eating places would make sense as a brand new house. “It’s lots of work,” he says, “and I don’t know which chef would need to take it.”
Le Gratin’s Truffle Burger.
Picture: Todd Coleman
The limited-edition burger occupies a wierd, paradoxical place on the earth of restaurant service. It’s directly a concession to a base American starvation whereas additionally being deliberately, maddeningly withholding, a subversion of the principles of hospitality. “You need it to be the factor that individuals need to come for, however you additionally don’t need it to be the one factor individuals come for,” says Melissa Rodriguez, whose bar-exclusive burger
at Crane Membership is made with dry-aged prime beef, white cheddar, and smoky tomato compote. “So having to work for it just a little bit just isn’t the worst thought on the earth.”
Angie Mar has continuously opined, in her Instagram Tales and within the press, that to dine at her restaurant Le B. just for Le Burger — dry-aged beef topped with caramelized onions and fromager d’Affinois listed at “market worth” with a $25 deposit required to order — and never for its six-course $295 tasting menu undersells the skills of the kitchen. “It doesn’t matter what delicacies I create, or how completed I’m, everybody will ask me concerning the burger,” Mar advised the New York Instances.
The trick for the entire cooks is to embrace the thrill that a fantastic burger creates whereas limiting what Raoul calls the “harm” that may be triggered when burger mania runs unchecked inside a restaurant. Shortage — manufactured or in any other case — is the important thing to creating the stability work. “I don’t actually really feel like a burger is sensible for my eating room,” says Rodriguez. “It’s much more informal than what the remainder of the eating room has to supply from a menu perspective.” And, she notes, “a burger can kill your examine common.”
Thanks for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
In case you choose to learn in print, you may also discover this text within the October 20, 2025, challenge of
New York Journal.
Need extra tales like this one? Subscribe now
to help our journalism and get limitless entry to our protection.
In case you choose to learn in print, you may also discover this text within the October 20, 2025, challenge of
New York Journal.