Best Burgers Near Me

Tag: nyc

  • The Definitive List of NYC’s Best Smashburgers

    The Definitive List of NYC’s Best Smashburgers

    Updated as of July 2026

    As an NYC native, even though I haven’t lived in New York for a while, I still keep close tabs on the burger scene—and always knock out new spots on my to-do list when I’m back in town.

    After my latest trip this past July, here are my NYC smashburger rankings (all photos by me unless noted otherwise).

    9. Flat Out Burger — Solid, but a bit shy of the competition from a beef or sauce standpoint. Also tiny… probably needed a triple 😅

    Photo credit: Gotham Burger Social Club

    8. Gotham Burger Social Club — Need a revisit. Had it pre-smash obsession, didn’t fully click. But there’s a reason when everyone has it top-tier.

    7. Harlem Shake — Great beef, great char, great pickles.

    6. Smacking Burger — Gas station smash on 8th Ave. Delicious. Only tweak: give me a potato roll over sesame.

    5.  7th Street Burger — The “McDonald’s” of smashes (in scale, not quality). Consistent, everywhere, and legit very good.

    4. Casa 13urger — Kind of hidden, shouldn’t be. Beef is excellent, but the sauce is the star. Great heat. Could crush multiples easily.

    3. Smashed NYC — On my to-do for a long time. Worth it. Few smash spots offer blue cheese + bacon.

    2. Burger by Day — In the middle of a SoHo smash gauntlet and still stands out. Super juicy brisket/chuck blend. I’m usually anti lettuce/tomato on a smash… but it works here.

    1. KO Burger — Absolute crusher. Perfect smash, savory AF, and that KO sauce brings plenty of heat. Tastes like something my guy Willet Feng of burger-chan fame in Houston would dream up.

    Special Mention:

    RIP: @burgersonb — Alphabet City legend gone too soon. Oklahoma-style done right. Supposedly coming back in Virginia… which does nothing for me 😂

    Let me know what I missed! Where do I *have* to go next time I’m back?

    While you’re here, check out my authoritative ranking of the best classic burgers, smashburgers, and restaurant burgers across Houston, as well as my my thoughts on THE ANGRY LARRY, my namesake burger created by Hotline Burger that I recently crowned the #1 smashburger in all of Houston.

  • The “Legendary Cheeseburger” at NYC’s Nowon is highly overrated

    The “Legendary Cheeseburger” at NYC’s Nowon is highly overrated

    Monday, January 1, 2024 — I made time for one hype burger during our recent NYC holiday trip, and — it wasn’t great.

    Nowon is a Korean-American gastropub with two New York locations. We dined at the East Village outpost on 6th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B. Having grown up six blocks away from Alphabet City and later as an adult living on its northern border at 14th Street and Avenue A, it’s my favorite neighborhood in New York. Countless memories of long nights at bars — my wife and I had our very first date at the former Musical Box (Easter egg!) bar on Avenue B between 13th and 14th Streets — and dozens of terrific meals, but unfortunately this wasn’t one of them.

    Nowon hit my radar on the heels of a handful of highly influential NYC food influencers — including Jeremy Jacobowitz; The Infatuation‘s Bryan Kim, Neha Talreja, Willa Morre, and Kenny Yang; and by Shauna Lyons in The New Yorker, arguably the city’s ultimate high-brow cultural aesthete — recommending the burger as one of the city’s best. No greater sign of a New York restaurant having a moment than threatening you with a $125 fee if you need to cancel and don’t provide ample advanced notice!

    Digression aside, our party of four was sat at a too-small roundtop despite there being a more generously sized rectangular table available. My brother and I were both excited to try what the restaurant calls its “Legendary Cheeseburger.” 

    The sandwich consists of two smashed patties, pickles, kimchi, and kimchi sauce, and…it was incredibly underwhelming. While I’m certainly willing to give a place the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to a bad night, the burger was straight-up boring. The sesame-seed bun was uninspiring and borderline stale, and the patties were *way* overcooked. Biting into this thing was akin to chewing on a hockey puck. I thought for sure the kimchi sauce would moisten this arid meat-delivery vehicle, but no such luck — this was one of the drier burgers I can recall having in some time. I love a juicy burger, and this was the antithesis. Lastly, the patties were on the small side, and being smashed meant the sandwich had no heft. Maybe many New Yorkers prefer a daintier hamburger, but if there’s one “bigger in Texas” stereotype I’ve wholeheartedly adopted during my decade in the Lone Star State it’s the desire for burger stacks so massive you need to unhinge your jaw to consume them.

    Nowon’s saving grace for us that night was that everything else we ordered — pickled cucumbers and fried chicken for appetizers, and kimchee and mushroom rice veggie dish entrees selected by our significant others — was delicious.

    Parenthetically, during my previous trip home to NYC this last summer I made a point to try 7th Street Burger, another smashburger joint which has also garnered its share of hype. It was enjoyable — certainly juicier than Nowon’s — but I’m not sure it brought much more to the table than one might find at Shake Shack.

    Thus far in the Houston-NYC burger wars, H-Town is running circles around my hometown. While it may not be an entirely apples-to-apples to comparison, I can’t help but evaluate everything against burger-chan, my 2023 Top Burger winner, and eating Nowon’s dry, joyless burger made me appreciate just how fortunate Houstonians are to enjoy the thoughtful, intentional, and heartfelt experience Willet and Diane deliver every day.

    Nowon rating: 1 out of 5 patties 😬