Fresh Kill: the burger at Les Halles downtown

Les Halles, Anthony Bourdain’s downtown brasserie, makes one of my favorite cheeseburgers: ground to order with chopped sirloin, perfectly cooked with a good sear, served alongside some of the best fries in the city. I’ve had the burger at their Park Ave. location and I prefer the John Street joint, in the Financial district. They also serve good beer, from Allagash White to Kronenbourg 1664. Not a fantastic selection, but good. The Brooklyn Winter Lager was my favorite on tap.

Their burger is good because it is simple. A solid sesame bun, some caramelized onions, tomato. And good beef. Nothing crazy fancy, no claims of “single steer” or other nonsense. They grind it from the sirloin trimmings of their many tasty steaks. This time around it felt a tiny bit smaller and a little less fatty. I suppose it depends on what they have. But it is still one of the best burgers in the City. It’s not cheap, but not ridiculous. For great cheap burgers, there’s HB Burger, Shake Shack (AVOID the awful Times Square one), and the Burger Joint at the Parker Meridien (behind the curtain). Those are around seven bucks and really damn good.

The best, I am told, is at the Minetta Tavern. We have yet to try it. It is $26 for the top end burger. The burgers at DBGB, the beer & banger joint, are half that and are fantastic, one of the best. So is the roquefort burger at Spotted Pig. So it’s tough to go pay that much for a burger, even as a treat. How great could it be? If it is as disappointing as the “single steer” burger at Pig & Prince in Montclair- I’d rather have a $7 burger from Krug’s Tavern- then it’s money down the drain. But I will try it eventually, and report back to you. My standard is still the Cloverleaf Tavern. They make a consistently good burger, if you get it medium to medium rare. Sometimes the kitchen overcooks them, but when they get it right they are one of the best around, especially for the price.