Midtown Lunch

Earlier this year I was doing a scouting lunch for a freelance story and ended up eating lunch at The Bailey Pub & Brasserie on William (at Pine). It’s a very Wall St. restaurant right down to the red leather banquettes, giant bull sculpture and flat-screen TVs silently tuned to financial news channels. In other words, this is not a very Downtown Lunch kind of place. The prices also aren’t very DL because unless you sit at the bar and order sliders you’re not going to get out of here for less than $12 and that’s not including tip. So why am I writing about this place? They happen to have one of the best burgers I’ve eaten in the Financial District.

There are so many sources of burgers in the FiDi, in so many price ranges, that it’s hard to keep track of them all. Burger Burger is OK, but you’re going to pay $12 or $13 there, and Zaitzeff is also going to cost you that much. Then there are all the pub burgers, or fancier gastropub varieties, but it’s also hard to get anything for less than $10. Even at a truck like La Cense or Frites N Meats you’re going to shell out close to $10 or more for a burger and fries.

The point of this is that the $14 burger at The Bailey is not a bad deal because it comes with fries and you get to have table service with a cloth napkin. It’s the occasional DL splurge that I can endorse.

Did I mention the burger is delicious? It’s large, hand-formed and seasoned nicely with salt and pepper, I like that they don’t overload it with piles of lettuce or tomato and it’s all resting nicely on a squishy sesame seed bun. You can get cheese on it for no extra charge, but the meat is so good here that you really don’t need it.

The fries, while they could have been a little crispier, were salty and fresh. It was a hard choice deciding whether to finish my burger or those fries, but the meat ended up winning.

My friend got the mac and cheese ($14) that looked pretty excellent. If you like bacon and molten cheese, this is probably going to make you pretty happy.

The Bailey Pub & Brasserie, 52 William St. (at Pine), (212) 859-2200