5 Napkin Grill

Five Napkin Burger's 114-seat corner venue (with 96 more seats outdoors) features shiny subway tiles on the walls and meatpacking racks with hooks hanging overhead. Somehow this translates to a dining room as warm and cozy as an oyster bar. No oysters are served here, but executive chef Andy D'Amico's diverse menu dishes sushi, steak frites, fish 'n' chips, matzo ball soup, and pork taquitos right alongside eight types of hamburgers. There are also 60 wines, 82 beers (eight on tap), a full bar with nine signature cocktails, and many milkshake flavors. The house burger is a big, fat ten-ounce patty of fresh ground chuck nestled in a plush, buttered-and-toasted bun. The garnish of sautéed onions, melted Gruyère cheese, and rosemary aioli seems an eclectic choice for a signature burger -- although there is a ten-ounce bacon-cheddar burger with more traditional garnishing. It tastes fine enough, and the beef has a pleasingly mellow flavor to it, but it lacks the charred exterior you get from a grill (the burgers are griddled). Fries are thin and ultracrisp -- like McDonald's fries if rigor mortis set in -- and come salted to just the right degree. Milkshakes are thick and superb.