Le Rock

Le Rock is the Frenchette team's brasserie in Rockefeller Center, and the Cheeseburger Deluxe is a clean, confident build: grassfed beef, onion, Grafton cheddar, frites. It runs on both the lunch and dinner menus. We ate it as the fifth stop in Blackbird's Burger League Season 2.

The central fact of the visit is that we were not eating the same burger. Nick's was seasoned properly. Derek's was massively underseasoned. Seasoning is most of what separates a good burger from a flat one, and a gap that wide within one service is an execution problem rather than a recipe problem.

When it was right, there was real quality to it. The buttery crust on the bun was probably the best part of the whole burger, and the cook on the patty was good. That is a high enough ceiling to be worth going for.

It was still not flawless at its best. Under that crust the bun stayed a bit bready. The patty read slightly meaty and dry even though it was cooked properly, which is hard to explain and was noticeably there. And the meat itself was solid rather than remarkable.

We did not land in the same place on it, which follows directly from the inconsistency. Nick rated it higher. Derek said he would take 7th Street Burger over it.

The ceiling here is high enough that one of us placed it well above the other. The floor, served at the same table on the same night, was a burger missing its seasoning entirely.

Even at its best it had limits: a bun that stayed bready under a very good crust, a slightly dry texture, and meat that was solid without being remarkable. The gap between the two plates is what defines the assessment.