Seven Burgers Go Up Against Shake Shack's

Evan Sung for The New York TimesA plain burger at Shake Shack.

This week, I’m reviewing the Shake Shack chain in New York City. Since the food there is, admittedly, pretty simple, and since I had a few issues with the core of the Shake menu, I’m going to take a week off from my usual Five Dishes post. Instead, let’s talk burgers for a minute.

One basic measure of Shake Shack’s influence is the spread of places selling good, cheap burgers. In the past few weeks I’ve tried as many of them as I could, following suggestions from knowledgeable burgerologists like Ed Levine and Josh Ozersky.

I confined myself to burgers costing less than $10, which rules out some paragons of the form like the lamb burger at the Breslin. I also stuck to places that have opened since 2004, when the first Shake Shack appeared. One memorable night, I ate half a dozen burgers in Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan, traveling with a half-eaten Shake Shack burger in my pocket for reference purposes. (If you want to try it yourself, get a single burger, no cheese or other condiments. You’d be surprised how well it holds up to this kind of treatment.)

My results are below, in roughly descending order of preference. At the moment I feel like an anaconda after a big meal, so I’m going to lay off the burgers for a while now, but if you think I missed a particularly great one, let me know in the comments. Sooner or later my digestive system will recover and I’ll be slithering around town again, on the prowl for burgers.

Steak ‘n Shake Signature
1695 Broadway (West 53rd Street)
The Steak ‘n Shake burger is smashed, and is said to have been one of the inspirations for the Shake Shack burger. The first New York location of the Indianapolis-based chain offers an organic “Signature Steakburger,” and it’s fantastic, with a reliably browned surface and a fully rounded flavor. (Off topic but still important: The fries, fresh cut from russet potatoes, beat the pants off the ones at Shake Shack.)

FoodParc at Eventi
839 Sixth Avenue (West 29th Street)
Another Shake Shack clone, and a successful one. The meat is full of beefy flavor, the bun sweet and soft. Shake Shack at its best might put a little more sear on the patty, but Shake Shack wasn’t always at its best in my experience.

Schnipper’s Quality Kitchen
23 East 23rd Street (Madison Avenue)
620 Eighth Avenue (West 41st Street)
My side-by-side comparison pitted the Eighth Avenue locations of Schnipper’s and Shake Shack, and Schnipper’s came out ahead: its burger was saltier, juicier and more flavorful, while the one from Shake Shack was simply bland, dry and not well seared. (However, Shake Shack’s is sweeter and softer.)

Bill’s Bar & Burger
22 Ninth Avenue (West 13th Street)
The Shake Shack burger, despite having literal rough edges, is well behaved. It doesn’t stain the front of your shirt, or even dribble down your chin. The Classic at Bill’s does. It is greasy, juicy,and a little bit wrong side of the tracks. I didn’t think it had quite as much flavor as Shake Shack’s burger, but sometimes you just want a burger that makes you feel dirty.

Whitmans
406 East 9th Street (First Avenue)
Whitmans isn’t really a burger joint per se, but it does have a very good $8 burger made from grass-fed beef grown in upstate New York. The meat really has that grass-fed depth and resonance, which makes up for a slight dryness. However, the bun is nowhere near as good as Shake Shack’s, so I’d rate the overall ensemble slightly lower than Shake Shack.

Smashburger
80 DeKalb Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Smashburger sells, duh, a smashed burger, which puts it in the same genre as Shake Shack and the new Steak ‘n Shake. Unfortunately, a side-by-side comparison revealed the Smashburger patty to be woefully short on flavor, despite the surface similarities.

Blue 9 Burger
92 Third Avenue (East 12st Street)
This dark-horse candidate was a dark horse for good reason. I took two bites of the dry, tough, underseasoned patty and walked out.

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