Do Not Disturb

Do Not Disturb is Daud Sturdivant's restaurant and cocktail bar in a basement West Village space, built as much around music and atmosphere as around the food. Josh Reisner is the culinary director. The Smashed Burger & Fries is the kind of burger that fits a room like that.

The espresso bacon jam is what gives it an identity. It opens with the sweetness you expect from a bacon jam, adds smoke from the bacon, then finishes with a restrained bitterness from the espresso that keeps the whole topping from reading as a conventional sweet condiment.

It works particularly well against the double smashed dry-aged patties. The beef already brings a deeper, funkier savory flavor, and the espresso and bacon reinforce that character rather than pulling the burger toward something brighter or more acidic. The roasted garlic mayo ketchup then rounds off the sharper edges, adding creaminess and another savory layer that connects the jam back to the meat.

The word we used after eating it was dark, meaning the roasted, smoky, bitter, dry-aged character of the thing rather than heaviness or poor balance. Most smashburgers build contrast with pickles, raw onion, mustard, or a sharper sauce. This one uses bitterness and smoke to add dimension to the richness instead, and the result is cohesive and genuinely unusual.

Our notes do not flag a weakness, and we are not going to invent one. The burger's argument is its flavor profile.

Practical notes: it comes with fries, dinner reservations go through Resy, and the bar takes walk-ins first come, first served.

Do Not Disturb separates itself through a distinctive relationship between dry-aged beef, bacon smoke, espresso bitterness, sweetness, and roasted garlic. The components create a cohesive flavor profile that is darker and more savory than a conventional smashburger.

The original tasting notes support the burger's originality and balance but do not document a specific limiting component.