Since I started Burger Diva, pretty much all my dad texts me are Instagram Reels about burgers.
He’s very in-the-know when it comes to what’s hot and what food influencers to follow but is blissfully unaware of the bloodbath that is Resy and Open Table culture so I took it upon myself to score a hard-to-get table for his 60th that also may or may not have been at the top of my list to try out - Minetta Tavern.
Minetta Tavern was birthed in 1937, on the corner of Minetta and MacDougal and was resuscitated in a big way by Keith McNally in 2008. Before its French bistro style menu we’ve come to know, the Minetta of the 90s and early aughts was actually doing Italian family-style dining. But through it all the interiors remain the same, wood-paneled, covered in murals of old New York and black and white photos of famous patrons.
Minetta serves up two burgers: the eponymous Minetta Burger for $31 and the Black Label Burger for $38. They both come on brioche buns with a healthy serving of caramelized onions and a side of fries. The main distinction between the two is that the Black Label patty is made with dry aged beef. And it doesn’t come with cheese!
Based on recommendations and overall online fervor, I opted to go big with the Black Label burger which is tied with 4 Charles to be the priciest burger I’ve tried yet, but with fries included it doesn’t feel too awful. I love New York!
The burger arrived at the table and I was honestly shocked by the sheer…rotundness of it. It looked meatball adjacent, and with the patty enveloped in a plush bun from Balthazar just down the road, it was very vertically impressive. The first bite was crazy - you don’t expect an intense crust on a burger of this size. The depth of flavor came through clear as day and the dry aged funk paired perfectly with the simple and sweet onions.
The bun was not too sugary and didn’t soften too much in the course of eating this super succulent burger. I still don’t know how they managed to make a burger of this size with a crust like that while still managing to have such a juicy bite.
I honestly had a hard time figuring where I wanted to place this burger on my ranking. It was obviously delicious and had no major flaws, outside of being a hard get with a steep price tag. I also felt it was more worth the money than its equally pricey peer at 4 Charles.
But when I think about how I rank as well as how I recommend, I like to factor in the Return Factor™. Am I going back? And would I go again just to get the burger?
After much deliberation, I’ve placed the Minetta Tavern Black Label Burger at number 6 - between Cozy Royale and The Seneca. Its complex flavor and strong construction make it top 10 worthy, but other burgers that rank higher had a distinct “wow” factor that wasn’t struck in quite the same way.
In a way, the acclaim made the burger perform exactly as expected.