Midtown Lunch

If LT Burger doesn’t satisfy your overpriced burger needs, never fear! Chef Laurent Tourondel (shall we call him LT?) is opening another restaurant, BLT American Brasserie, just blocks away on 45th between 5th and 6th in the Cassa New York Hotel. The humble acronym BLT paired with the haughty descriptor Brasserie won’t fool many Midtown Lunchers. If it’s anything like its Chicago counterpart (which, according to Yelp, is now closed) it’s going to serve more expensive burgers, along with pizza (no, pardon me, pizettas, which to me, means nothing more than a tiny pizza), sushi, salads, steak, and other foods you can readily find in America. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that a lunch at BLT is going cost far more than most sensible Lunchers are willing to spend.

Last week, LT Burger (40th btw. 5th and 6th) opened just outside of Bryant Park last week just two days later than expected. The original LT Burger is in Long Island’s Sag Harbor, and was getting some compliments from Lunch’ers who had tried their burgers there. Although I knew there were only a few choices on the menu under $10, I wanted to see what this place was all about. I thought hell, if Guy Fieri is getting so much attention with a $25 chicken parm, LT Burger deserves a shot too.

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Back in March, Midtown Lunch’ers were talking about the arrival of LT Burger in the forums (on 40th between 5th and 6th), a restaurant/bar with reportedly excellent burgers and interesting milkshakes. Folks were hoping the prices would be more reasonable than LT’s Sag Harbor location. The ML team reports that the menu is slightly different and also somewhat cheaper than the one on their website, but only in certain cases. Menu items tend to be between $0 and $3 cheaper, with shakes being about the same. The Standard Burger (no cheese but lettuce, tomato, pickle and onion) is $9 as compared to $11 in the Hamptons location, likely a nod to the maximum price the Midtown market will bear.