The NYC Smashburger Power Rankings
The city's crispiest, sauciest, most satisfying smashburgers, ranked.
The city’s best burgers fall into three distinct categories: the Big Meats (Raoul’s, Red Hook Tavern), the hard-to-classifies (Lovely’s Old Fashioned, Long Island Bar), and finally the flattened, saucy smashburgers that are over in four to five bites. Smashburgers aren’t new to NYC, but they’ve really taken off over the past few years, and now they’re as common as everything bagels and $1.50 slices that used to cost $1. So of course, you need to know which ones to eat first. These are NYC’s best smashburgers, ranked.
For some serious burger talk, check out our podcast, Restaurant People.
Harlem Shake
The Order: The Hot Mess ($10.50), sweet yam fries ($4.75), and a milkshake ($6), because they have shake in their name and it seems wrong not to.
You can, of course, eat an excellent smashburger at Harlem Shake, but you can also—and this is key—hang out in the retro diner-like space while doing so. There’s usually a band jamming on Sundays, a large sidewalk patio for summertime milkshake sipping, and the place is open until 2am on the weekends. Get the Hot Mess burger, which follows their standard double patty practice, but adds pickled cherry pepper and bacon relish, american cheese, and chipotle mayo. They also have a location in Park Slope for any Brooklyn burger cravings.
Food Rundown
Harlem Classic Burger with Cheese
A pair of thinly smashed custom blend sirloin patties lathered with American cheese, onions, pickles, and special sauce on a soft potato bun. These burgers have a meaty flavor, and remind us of an elevated, double-stacked from Wendy’s in the best of ways. You can freestyle on your burger too, adding anything from a loosie (extra patty), to fried pork rinds, to pickled cherry pepper-bacon relish. Also, both veggie and turkey burgers are available, which you can customize however you want, or swap out with the beef burgers on the menu.
Barbecue Onion Burger
This is the one to get. We thoroughly enjoyed this burger. Double patties with grilled onions pressed into the meat and topped with cheese, pickles, and homemade BBQ sauce. A very sloppy home run.
Jerk Chicken Sandwich
If you’re into a Jamaican-style jerk sauce, this is your move. The crispy sandwich comes on a soft potato bun with spicy Caribbean slaw & jerk mayo.
Sonoran Dog
This one might've weighed us down for a couple of hours, and that’s something to celebrate. A deep-fried bacon-wrapped dog, with pickled cherry pepper-bacon relish, chipotle mayo, and onions. It’s one of the best things we tried here. Do it.
Classic Patty Melt
We haven’t tried anything from the melts/grilled cheese section, but it’s worth noting that all kinds of melted cheese sandwich options exist on the menu and our guess is they’re probably pretty damn good.
Harlem Shake
Milkshakes made with Brooklyn’s very special Blue Marble ice cream are right up our alley, and the namesake “Harlem” shake is particularly awesome. It’s a red velvet style concoction, but it’s not overly overwhelming in the red velvet flavor department. There’s just a hint of sweet velvet in the predominantly vanilla shake. So good.
Check out the full list here: https://www.theinfatuation.com/new-york/guides/best-smashburgers-nyc