The city’s obsession with burgers had already reached peak LaFrieda when, a year ago, long after Daniel Boulud had upped the burger ante with foie gras and Shake Shack had gone public, April Bloomfield opened Salvation Burger. This was a natural move for the British nose-to-tail devotee, as Bloomfield has buttressed her gastropub mini-empire with two exemplary specimens: a hefty, salt-bombed Roquefort-covered beef gem, at the Spotted Pig, and, at the Breslin, a lamb burger that may be the juiciest in the city. In May, Salvation Burger closed after a damaging fire (no one was hurt); last month, the restaurant re-opened, wood-fired burgers intact.
Bloomfield is not only a perfectionist, she’s a purist. She recently débuted White Gold, an Upper West Side butcher counter and café, where whole steer and pigs are broken down, supplying the ground beef for her restaurants. (White Gold’s chopped cheese sandwich, a pristine take on a quickie deli staple, is a thing of beauty.) Salvation Burger offers a parade of well-executed dishes, such as a comforting roasted marrow bone and an exemplary poutine, a mound of fries and cheese curds, soaked in a deeply savory oxtail-dotted gravy (“Better than the one we had in Canada,” one diner said). But how are the burgers? Bloomfield nails the details in both the Classic, with two smashed-thin patties dripping with house-made American cheese (a natural liquid Velveeta that should be bottled), and in the Salvation, which arrives gigantic, dense, and funky, topped with Taleggio and caramelized onions.
Meanwhile, Black Tap has been building an empire of another sort, based not on the strength of its burger, which is considerable, but on the Willy Wonka decadence of its milkshakes. Everything about the shakes is ridiculous: the store-bought taste of the frosting that adheres the candy to the glass; the dry, cloying brownies in the Brooklyn Blackout; the mounds of blue and pink spun sugar and the giant lollipops protruding from the Cotton Candy. But none of that matters. People wait in lines around the block not to have a culinary epiphany but to make a declaration, preferably on social media: Watch me! I’m having fun!! The burgers, on the other hand, are delicious. From day one, before the crazy crowds, before the expansion to the Village and midtown, there was an unusually excellent burger. Large, loosely packed, seared on the outside, soft pink inside, the Black Tap burger is still one of the best in the city. Get it to go, and skip the shake. (Salvation Burger: burgers $17-$25; Black Tap: burgers $14-$19.) ♦
