Ayesha Nurdjaja’s Best Burgers in New York

For many years, the Peter Luger burger was my number one [burger], until the Red Hook Tavern opened. The thing that I love the most is the simplicity: burger, cheese, bun, white onion. Four things. The burger is probably an eight to nine ounce patty, so it's on the thicker side. It's cooked on a flat top, so it's got this crispy exterior, American cheese melted on top of it, and the burger to bun ratio is perfection. They use dry-aged meat, so when you're biting into it, you're kind of having a Ratatouille moment of being in the steakhouse. And this is not a burger that you would want to pair with a beer. This is a burger that you should feel confident opening up a mega bottle of Champagne with and celebrating, because it's a culinary triumph.

What I love about the Peter Luger burger is really the texture and flavor of the meat. They obviously take all the end cuts of the porterhouse or whatever the steaks that they're serving and grind it up [for] the burger. This burger is lightly packed—I'm sure they're doing it in a machine, but as the person eating it, it feels like it's been smacked between two hands ever so gently so that the meat is kind of just stuck together. Again, straightforward: the presentation is bun, cheese, and meat. This one, the onions come on the side; I'm a fan of raw white onion. When you bite into it, the bun is very soft. It’s kind of like a supporting cast member, and what you're eating is a juicy, unctuous, dry-aged burger cooked to perfection.

If you ever make it into 4 Charles Prime by a wing and a prayer, the odds of you getting back in are probably slim to none. This burger comes with a version of a burger sauce, slab bacon, a sunny-side-up egg, chives. The burger’s brought to you on an oval plate, open faced, so that you can see the egg. And then a server comes over, literally with white gloves, takes [the part of] the bun that has cheese sauce and egg and with a knife, scores [the egg] with an 'x' and then drips the egg yolk on the bottom part, on the top of the burger, and then closes it. When you close it, it's got this brioche bun that you literally can see your reflection in. You're thinking that you're looking at a Ferrari, that's how shiny this bun is. When you bite into it it's pure burger heaven; the egg almost kind of fades away and acts like a creamy condiment. The way that the bacon is sliced and cooked, adds a hint of smokiness. But you don't really feel like you're having a bacon cheeseburger.

Emmett's is a Chicago pizza joint that's actually on the same block as Shuka, which is my first restaurant. I go there for the thin crust, Chicago bar-style pizza. However, [after] years of eating there, I turned around one day and someone was elbow to elbow at the bar eating this burger. And I said, my God, you know, I've never really looked at the whole menu, because I only go for pizza. And the guy goes, 'You have to try this burger.' I ordered the burger and I was amazed. The two burgers that I tried, because I had somebody with me, were the blue cheese burger, and then the Cheddar cheese burger. The Cheddar cheese burger has cheese melted on the bun. There's giardiniera-type relish, so it's not on the sweet side. It's more on the punchy, pickly side. Double patty, not thin though—this is a burger that you need two hands for, and you need to back up when you're eating it, because the juices will be running all over the place.

Swoony’s is a bistro opened by a fellow chef friend of mine, Sal Napoli [Lamboglia], and it's kind of like an American, slash French Bistro. It's got, all the classics: crab Louie, wedge salad, clams casino, steak au poivre, and then they have the Swoony’s burger. The Swoony’s burger is on a housemade English muffin, which is something that I normally would not go for. It's two patties with cheese, and again, a burger sauce. There's some kind of relish in there. I can't tell you what the secret sauce is. The thing about this bun is that it kind of holds the juices that are cascading down from this burger, and the cheese gets sucked up in there. And when you bite it, each bite has different textures. One bite you're getting more of the sauce; one bite is pure burger; another bite is like burger juices and cheese because of the way that the bun is designed.

I'm from Gravesend, Brooklyn, and there are two places for burgers here. One is called Brennan and Carr, and the other is Roll and Roaster, and you're either a fan of one or the other. I'm a Roll and Roaster girl. It's a griddle burger on a kaiser roll. Kind of on the thin side. But the magic of this is Cheez Whiz—that hot, liquidy cheese that's pumped from a canister. So when you order your burger, the burger comes in kind of like a to-go container, and then they open the bun of the burger—burger's cooked on a flat top—and somebody puts the bun of the burger underneath the spout that has hot lava cheese coming out of it. Obviously, it's liquefied all over the burger and all over the kaiser roll. And the cooking of the flat top gives it that crispy exterior. Just dynamite.

Nowon is [owned by] another chef friend of mine, Jae Lee, and this burger's won multiple awards, and truthfully, maybe three years after he opened, was the first time that I tried it, because the burger sounds so confusing to me. It's a kimchi burger. Nothing that I would go for, because I'm on the purest side. But the burger is constructed the way that an architect looks at a building. It's got spicy kimchi mayo, a chopped kimchi relish, two patties, not really smash burger thin, but not eight ounce thin, they're probably about four ounces a piece. The cheese is layered three times: there's a bottom layer, the burger, then the cheese and the next burger, and then the cheese, and then they repeat with the spicy kimchi mayo. This burger, you almost need to take your jaw apart to eat it, because it's stacked. I cut mine in half, and it was a symphony of flavors. It's just a well constructed and delicious burger.

Cookshop's is a chef’s chef's burger. Eight ounces, grass-fed meat. When you hear grass fed, you think of quality, but you don't think of fat content. I think it's a little way how you handle it. It's lightly packed, and there's unpasteurized Cheddar cheese on top. And if you know anything about unpasteurized cheeses is that they don't get that melty, gooey quality. They do melt but it doesn't give you that string pull that everybody's looking for. What you're getting is this supple, sour-esque—in the best way—cheese that's very unexpected. The burger toppings are seasonal, so in the summer you'll get tomato, but in the winter, you get these pickled red onions—it's a cold pickle, so they retain their crispiness, and the bright acidity that you get when you bite into this burger is bar none. It comes with ketchup and mayo on the side. You could throw the bun in the garbage if you wanted to, and eat it like a steak dinner. It's all about the meat, the cheese, and the pickled onions.