When George Motz, possibly our greatest scholar of hamburgers, announced last year that he would be opening a burger joint of his very own, New York’s center of gravity shifted—subtly, but perceptibly—toward a red brick building on the corner of MacDougal and Houston, in Soho, where he had signed a lease. The restaurant, which opened in November, has been kitted out with chrome and Formica, a retro fantasia bearing the same grand, unifying, handon-heart name, and ethos, as Motz’s first film and first book: Hamburger America.
There are just two burgers on the menu at Hamburger America. The Classic Smash—in which a baseball of freshly ground beef is smeared into lace-edged flatness on a searing-hot griddle—can be ordered “all dressed,” with melty American cheese, diced onion, a few dill-pickle rounds, and…
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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 22, 2024