#75 in NYC
Bill's Bar & Burger
Financial District, Manhattan
Brotherly Breakdown
Our own take, from eating it. Written by Brotherly Burgers.
The Fat Cat at Bill's Bar & Burger is a genuinely well-balanced pub burger, and the English muffin is why. It is thin and absorbent, so it takes up less of the bite than a standard bun and returns the meat juice and sauce it soaks up.
Everything follows from that. Caramelized onions bring sweetness, the special sauce brings tang, and the patty stays the leading flavor through the whole burger. The texture balance across the toppings was fantastic.
Best for
Pub and tavern burgers, English muffin buns, caramelized onions, thousand island style sauces, and balanced meat-forward builds.
The catch
The special sauce ran a bit thin. That is the only structural complaint in our notes, and it did not stop the burger working.
What it's actually like
Bill's Bar & Burger is Stephen Hanson's burger restaurant, and we ate at the Financial District location. The Fat Cat is caramelized onion, American cheese, special sauce, lettuce, tomato and pickle, on an English muffin. This assessment is based on one visit.
The bun is the whole argument. An English muffin sounds like a gimmick and is not. It is thinner and more absorbent than a brioche or a potato roll, which does two things at once: it cuts the bread volume in every bite, and it soaks up the meat juice and the sauce and gives them back. Bread that adds flavor instead of diluting it. Our notes say it beat out some brioche buns, and that is not a comparison we make often.
Everything else falls in behind it. The caramelized onions were done well and supply the sweetness. The sauce supplies the tang. And because there is less bread in the way, the patty stays meat-forward through the burger, which is the thing most pub burgers lose. Sweet, tangy, and meat-forward, in that balance, is a properly built burger.
The texture side works the same way. Each topping held its own character rather than going soft into a single mass, which our notes call out specifically.
Two things worth stating. The sauce was a bit runnier than it should be. And we have eaten this twice: the first time we may have been starving after a train and rated it higher than we did on the return, so the second read is the one that stands.
One ordering note that matters. The Fat Cat is not the same item as The Bill's Burger, which is the restaurant's plain classic. This review is of the Fat Cat.
Strengths
- English muffin reduces bread volume and returns juice and sauce to the bite
- Excellent flavor balance for a pub-style burger
- Caramelized onions done well
- Fantastic texture balance across the toppings
- Stays meat-forward
Why this score
The bun decision is what lifts this above an ordinary pub burger. Less bread in the bite and more juice returned to it produces a balance of sweetness, tang, and beef that most burgers in this category never reach.
What keeps it where it is, is that this is a very good execution of a familiar idea rather than a new one, and the sauce was thinner than it should have been. Our own assessment also came down between the first visit and the second.
Reviewed by Brotherly Burgers. Last written July 2026.
- Neighborhood
- Financial District, Manhattan
- Cuisine
- American
- Price
- $$
- Style
- Smash
Fat Cat
Caramelized onion, American cheese, special sauce, lettuce, tomato and pickle, on an English muffin.
$16.99
Classic burger joint in the Financial District from Stephen Hanson.
