Supply Lines      12/03/2008  

At Last! La Frieda Black Label Available to Public at City Burger

Photos by Stephanie Shih.

Hamburger fetishists across the city, long tantalized by the thought of the legendary but unavailable “Bentley of Beef,” the Pat La Frieda ultra-premium Black Label blend, can this day rest easy. The Feedbag, which hosted the city’s first Black Label tasting, has an earth-shattering exclusive: the proprietary, batch-numbered Black Label meat will be available to the public starting Friday at City Burger. The Times Square restaurant, which opened earlier this year to lukewarm reviews, has done a major revamp, re-creating itself as a temple to classic burger cookery. Griddles have replaced the grills, the menu has narrowed, and the focus is now on the glories of La Frieda beef at the Times Square meatery. “We’re not a fast food place,” says owner Dominick Abitino…

“We’re cooking the city’s best burgers! Our rivals aren’t Wendy’s and McDonald’s. They’re Shake Shack and The Spotted Pig and Corner Bistro and the city’s other great burgers. And I’ll put ours up against any of them.” The Feedbag, who consumed an ungodly number of City Burgers the other day, can well agree. The regular City Burger, ordered medium rare, is one of the city’s best. But the Black Label, which will start on Friday, is in a category by itself, in taste — and also in price: at $10.99, it will be nearly twice as much as the regular City Burger. But what serious burger eater would begrudge themselves prime, dry-aged Black Label for the sake of saving the cost of a gyro? No one the Feedbag is friends with.

Happy days are here in Hamburger Land. The Black Label Burger is available at last.

Related: Test-Driving the Bentley of Burgers: La Frieda Black Label

Comments

15 Responses to “At Last! La Frieda Black Label Available to Public at City Burger”

  1. Nick Solares on December 3rd, 2008 9:18 am

    That is a very attractive price. And talk about calling out the biggest guys in the bar - The Shack, The Pig and The Bistro.

  2. danny on December 3rd, 2008 10:04 am

    Did they get better since they revamped it? Because their burger used to be mediocre.

  3. sir chowalot on December 3rd, 2008 12:15 pm

    Just to point out, Peter Lugers serves lunchtime half pound burgers made from the trimmings of their prime, dry-aged steaks for $8.95. Not so sure City Burger’s burger will outdo that.

  4. Josh Ozersky on December 3rd, 2008 1:34 pm

    It will. First of all, Peter Luger doesn’t buy first rate meat. Second of all, they couldn’t cook a hamburger if their lives depended on it. Third of all…wait, that’s it. Black Label + griddle = burger supremacy.

  5. Josh Ozersky on December 3rd, 2008 1:34 pm

    Danny, give it a chance and write in! We’ll do a reader response roundup post.

  6. sir chowalot on December 3rd, 2008 3:09 pm

    huh? Peter Luger doesn’t buy first rate meat? I’d be interested to know how you reach that conclusion - I remember not long ago when they cut back on taking reservations because there wasn’t prime meat of sufficient quality to meet their standards. I have no vested interest in PL’s or care one way or the other about City Burger’s burger, but am pretty surprised to hear that Luger’s buys second rate (or worse) meat. Please explain.

    And having eaten Luger’s burger on more than one occasion, I would also have to say that your second argument is fairly non-sensical, but then I’m sure you know that.

  7. DocChuck on December 3rd, 2008 4:31 pm

    Okay, with the help of my favorite butcher here in Columbia, along with some help from my Food Lion butcher in Elkridge, I attempted to whip up a batch of this hamburger mix that has you guys in NYC so excited.

    Using my trusty, 20-year-old Kitchen Aid meat grinder (with the coarse blade), I ground a mixture of 25% each — dry-aged ribeye, untrimmed skirt, trimmed brisket, and short rib meat (trimmed of the fat layer).

    We hand blended (gently) the mix after it came out of the grinder, formed it into 8-ounce patties, and permitted the patties to reach room temp.

    We then fried them in a (equivalent to a HOT restaurant griddle) 16-inch Lodge cast-iron skillet, lightly coated with fresh bacon grease.

    The burgers were very good. We really enjoyed them.

    But were they good enough to make us wet our pants, so to speak? Were they good enough to make us want to spend a portion of our life “blogging” about them? I guess I would have to say, emphatically, NO.

    If you New York City folks REALLY want to center your lives around a burger mix that is delicious, you may want to try my wife’s ground bison (from Ted Turner’s South Dakota herd) blend which incorporates my relative’s range-fed longhorn cattle from their ranch in Brenham, Texas.

    I realize that OUR blend may not impress the NYC “Burger Aficionados”, but I assure you that we southern folks will have a better burger for one hell of a lot less money then your hyped “La Frieda” mix.

    But then, we are not attempting to “market” a so-called “chic” hamburger meat on which we hope to make us rich. We are just attempting to make some really good hamburger meat.

    Bon Apetit! (or whatever)

  8. Feedbag Reader Blunders Into Pre-Premiere Black Label Burger! | The Feedbag on December 3rd, 2008 6:01 pm

    [...] Related: At Last! La Frieda Black Label Available to Public at City Burger [...]

  9. Grumpy Surburbanite on December 4th, 2008 8:14 am

    First of all Don chuck everyone knows the best meat comes to NYC because of demand and the price we pay for it. So you are working with a lesser product you could never recreate what is done in NY by the meat masters. I have tried Hambuegers all over the country and I can say that Bison lean and dry that it is would be at the bottom of my list. I would eat a Turkey Burger before that a burger should be sweet and rich and beefy and juicy fat is flavor. A sin is a sin don’t try to justify it with healthy leaner meat. Good day to YOU sir.

  10. Grumpy Surburbanite on December 4th, 2008 8:16 am

    I have also eaten Peter Luger burgers and they are no great feat. Any burger made of leftover scraps will never score high. I have tried all of these burgers by these LaFrieda guys and one is better than the next. They do have something here…..

  11. Midtown Lunch » City Burger Reinvents Itself With Black Label on December 4th, 2008 10:00 am

    [...] Some big news reported by the Feedbag yesterday… City Burger, which has gotten mixed reviews since they opened on 39th St. just East of Broadway, will reinvent themselves starting tomorrow as “a temple to classic burger cookery. Griddles have replaced the grills, the menu has narrowed, and the focus is now on the glories of La Frieda beef.” [...]

  12. Dean on December 9th, 2008 4:05 pm

    I am from Nebraska and can state unequivically that we manage to keep and eat some of the good stuff.(some of you east coast centric NYers need to get out more) I grew up eating better beef then you are all talking about. Hype don’t sell in the heartland…but prime beef do.

  13. Minetta Tavern to Embrace the Glory of the Black Label Burger! | The Feedbag on December 15th, 2008 2:42 pm

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  14. DocChuck on December 15th, 2008 2:51 pm

    Dean, makin’ talk like that will get you branded as a “redneck”, or WORSE, as “Yosemite Sam” . . . LOL.

    You DO NOT want to bust the New Yawka’s bubble in their belief that they are the only people on the planet with “access” to good beef.

    I mean those po’ folks in New Yawk City have had SOOoo many of their ‘bubbles’ busted in the last couple of weeks, (Wall Street, Bernie Madoff, Lehman Bros, and on and on) . . . we simply CANNOT deprive the “Burger Pack” of their very last hope for survival . . . the “LaFrito Boys” and their ‘Black Label Beef’ . . . LOL!

    DocChuck,

    An ignorant Southena’ who doesn’t have “access” to “good beef” … ROFLMAO!

  15. what a joke on January 9th, 2009 12:33 am

    i find it rather insulting to the american pulic to say a black label burger at the rock bottem price of ????? is comparative to a sirloin or filet of what? why don’t we just start grinding up caviar. there is a difference. when you want a burger you enjoy it fatty and juicey. when you want a filet you want it lean and flavorful. great propaganda for the burger industry!!!!

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