#74 in NYC
Emily
West Village, Manhattan
Brotherly Breakdown
Written by Brotherly Burgers
Emily's Emmy Burger was not as good as we remembered, and the problem is flavor balance rather than ambition. The pretzel bun, the caramelized onions, and the bread and butter pickles all push sweet, and nothing in the build cuts against them.
The Emmy sauce is genuinely fantastic and there was not enough of it on our burger. The Pat LaFrieda beef was solid but arrived medium and underseasoned. What we got was sweet and flat. We still liked it. We were disappointed by the execution.
Best for
Pretzel buns, sweet flavor profiles, caramelized onions, Pat LaFrieda dry-aged beef, and pizza restaurants with a serious burger.
The catch
The sweetness overpowers. The pretzel bun is sweet and buttery, the caramelized onions add more, and the bread and butter pickles are sweeter and less acidic than this build needs. Nothing cuts through it.
What it's actually like
We went back to Emily expecting the burger we remembered and did not get it. Both of us have eaten it at the West Village location at least twice, so this is a revisit and the comparison is part of the judgment.
The sweetness arrives from three directions at once. The Tom Cat pretzel bun is genuinely enjoyable and it is very sweet and buttery. The caramelized onions add more on top of that. And the bread and butter pickles, which in almost any other build would be the acid that cuts everything, are sweeter than expected and less acidic than the burger needs. The one component whose job is contrast joins the problem instead.
Two things could have rescued it and neither did. The Emmy sauce is fantastic, a real mix of sweet, spicy, and tangy, and there simply was not enough of it on our burger. The Pat LaFrieda dry-aged beef is quality meat and the quality was noticeable, but it came out medium and underseasoned, so it did not assert itself either. It wanted salt and pepper.
The result was sweet and flat. We ordered one with bacon and one without, and we did not write down anything about the bacon, so we are not going to tell you about it.
Two honest notes. We raised the possibility that we caught a bad batch, and we are flagging that rather than pretending to know. And we do not remember the cheese with certainty, so we are not going to tell you what it tasted like; the current West Village menu lists American cheese, and that is a fact about the burger today rather than a memory of ours. The current menu also states the burger is cooked to medium as standard, which may mean it was performing to spec and still reading overcooked to us.
Strengths
- Emmy sauce is fantastic
- Pretzel bun is enjoyable
- Pat LaFrieda beef quality is noticeable
- A genuinely distinctive build
Weaknesses
- Sweetness overpowers across bun, onions, and pickles
- Bread and butter pickles supply sweetness where acidity was needed
- Not enough sauce on our burger
- Patty underseasoned
Why this score
Every component here is individually good, and the sum is unbalanced in one direction. Three elements push sweet and none pushes back.
The two things that could have corrected it both fell short on our visit. The sauce that supplies tang was underapplied, and the patty that supplies salt and savory depth was underseasoned. That is what separates the burger we ate from the one we remembered.
Last written July 2026.
- Neighborhood
- West Village, Manhattan
- Cuisine
- Pizza & Burgers
- Price
- $$
Emmy Burger Double Stack
Pat LaFrieda dry-aged beef, Emmy sauce, caramelized onion, American cheese, pickles on Tom Cat pretzel bun. With curly fries.
$26
Pizza spot famous for their Emmy Burger. Multiple locations in NYC including Brooklyn original.
