Fast Food of the Culinary Gods
By Josh Ozersky, Senior Editor, Restaurants
The days of the unadorned, low-rent, unapologetic hamburger and hot dog have gone the way of the Model T. Today's chef-of-the-moment is putting his mark on the fast-food standards of youth, and will do anything to make it memorable.
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The Little Owl
90 Bedford St, New York, NY
Joey Campanaro's hamburger, made of the juiciest imaginable La Frieda beef and set on a house-made bun of unrisen pizza dough, is the best one in New York right now, even without the lusciously thick bacon atop it. -
Momofuku Ssam Bar
207 2nd Ave, New York, NY
The ssam, an "Asian burrito" as it was first described, is actually a thick, multi-dimensional wrap filled with lemongrass pork sausage and fish sauce in one, and grilled pork belly, marinated clams and mustard in another. Meanwhile, the famous pork bun is essentially an elevated, Asian White Castle. -
Lure
142 Mercer St, New York, NY
You wouldn't expect a fish restaurant, much less one as posh and fashionable as Lure, to have the city's best chicken wings, but there you are. Josh Capon's buffalo wings are boned and shaped and barely connected to a tiny bone that acts as a lollipop stick. -
David Burke at Bloomingdale's
1000 3rd Ave, New York, NY
David Burke's fast-food genius has asserted itself before, with his spray-on bacon flavor and french fry technology. But nothing could have prepared us for the brilliance of the Burke in a Box burger, which involves cooking Creekstone beef inside custom buns so that they absorb the juice and crisp up on the outside. -
Madaleine Mae
461 Columbus Ave, New York, NY
Jonathan Waxman knows chicken. Even his detractors will admit that the roasted chicken at Barbuto is the restaurant's most durable draw. But his fried chicken here is an even greater achievement, shatteringly crispy, as light as gnocchi, and pan-fried to oily perfection. -
Dogmatic Dogs
26 E 17th St, New York, NY
Not really hot dogs as much as sausages, these all-natural, highly sapid, and lovingly sourced Violet Hill Farm sausages nestle inside crispy baguettes and make the former tenant, wurst mecca Mandler's, seem as sad as a dirty-water dog in comparison.
