| Serious Eats |
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This article appeared in Serious Eats Magazine Top Quality Ingredients Shine in the Burger at 42 in White Plains, New YorkPosted by Nick Solares, April 27, 2010 at 10:00 AM 4242therestaurant.com 
Too many chefs may spoil the broth, but when it comes to hamburgers it usually takes just one. For some reason those classically trained chefs, their heads stuffed with esoteric techniques and their ladders stocked with exotic ingredients, feel compelled to bring both to bear when it comes to making hamburgers. Black truffles, foie gras, funky cheeses, aioli’s, wine reductions, and caviar may find their way into their rococo creations. While the results may pique the interest and titillate the palate, they rarely, if ever, do what a great hamburger can do: satisfy the soul.
 Perhaps because he’s not classically trained, the hamburger chef Anthony
 Goncalves of 42 Restaurant serves at the bar room of his restaurant perched high atop the tallest building between NY and Boston is a study in minimalist purity. You can read about how this self taught chef came to own one of Westchester County’s most avant guarde restaurants over at Time. One thing he seems to have learned in his unique and unlikely journey is that top quality ingredients should be allowed to speak for themselves. The beef for his hamburger is the “La Frieda blend” from Pat La Frieda—an intoxicating mix of short rib, brisket, and chuck. 42 is one of the few places in Westchester County that sells it. Cooked on a plancha—a staple of Portuguese cooking reflecting Goncalves heritage—the patty develops a thick, salty crust the color of the darkest mahogany, which provides a pleasing contrast to the succulent interior and its velvety mouth feel and buttery texture. When the beef is this good I don’t think it needs much more than a great bun. While a Portuguese roll would have made sense, Goncalves keeps things sort of traditional with the house baked potato and onion roll. Like the patty it holds, it has a robust crust, but one that is ultimately pliant enough to yield to bite pressure. It has a mild yeasty tang and comes slathered in butter. The synergy between the bread and bun is a deeply satisfying. It needs nothing else – no cheese, no rabbit food nor even the excellent house made ketchup. At 10 oz is is rather unwieldy, perhaps requiring a third hand or failing that bisection. Served only at the bar, the burger is attractively priced at $15, which includes some spectacular fries—cut into thin planks they have a golden color, a supremely crispy crust, and a creamy interior. Generously dusted in salt they are irresistible and impossible to stop eating, even after consuming the enormous 10-ounce hamburger. |