Bill's Bar and Burger

In the sepia-toned pre-internet days, restaurants slowly built their reputations through good word-of-mouth, positive reviews, and consistent quality over a long stretch of time. But explosion of online food coverage means that a consensus can form about a restaurant in about as much time as it would take you to peruse the menu. Take the case of Bill's Bar and Burger. This small, studiously casual Meatpacking District spot was acclaimed for serving one of the city's best burgers before it even opened, and the plaudits kept coming on opening weekend as people tripped over one another to get in on the ground floor.


Muttering to ourselves about the wisdom of crowds, we joined the fray. The menu is short and to the point: six burgers, a fish sandwich, a few bar-food afterthoughts, fries, and shakes, including a creamy vanilla. One pleasant touch is the "crispy veggie fries," which are lightly fried vegetables, salty and crisp.


But the burgers are the restaurant's raison d'être, of course. The meat, a "secret blend" courtesy of Pat La Frieda, is smash-grilled in the style of the now-canonical Shake Shack burger empire. This technique gives the burger a crunchy sear that brings out the salt in the meat and keeps the juices inside. For a relatively thin burger, it's quite beefy in flavor, and satisfyingly rich. We overheard a guy at another table say that he'd been there five days in a row.


Given all of the hoopla around Bill's, our biggest surprise was that it was full of families, as though it had been a community stalwart for years. If they keep it up, maybe it will be.