Restaurant Review: Superiority Burger has the courage of its quirks

The new Superiority burger on Avenue A is about 10 times larger than the original, a 240-square-foot underground box on East Ninth Street that was outgrown “on day one,” according to Brooks Headley, the chef and an owner.

At the second location there is finally room for tables, chairs and the like. It also has room for things you won’t find in any other all-vegetarian and often vegan burger restaurant, things that only seem to be there because Mr. Headley and his co-conspirators asked a lot of questions that started, “Wouldn’t it be cool…”

Like: Wouldn’t it be cool if we put a little marquee over the sidewalk, like a little club, but instead of a Bambi Kino reunion would the board advertise our rhubarb pandowdy?

Wouldn’t it be cool if we made a bar snack mix that everyone would like, and sold it for a quarter — an actual quarter — from a ready-made vending machine, like Chiclets or kibble at a petting zoo?

Wouldn’t it be cool if the paper placemats had ads for businesses that sound like they belonged on Main Street in a one-stop hamlet in the Adirondacks, but today operate in the East Village (a sewing machine repair shop, a stamp supplier, a 138-year old drugstore and more)?

And yes, it’s pretty cool, y’all, especially when you consider that Superiority Burger could have gone in other directions. Given its huge popularity, I’m sure people have advised Mr. Headley to get it Shake Shack of vegetarianism. Instead of moving it into bigger rooms, he could have rented a lot more small spaces to sell fast-casual veggie burgers, tofu sloppy Joes, burnt broccoli salads, the best gelato in town, and other items I eagerly inhaled before I got my two-star review of the original, in 2015. It would have been an obvious thing to do.

Mr. Headley, however, never seemed interested in the obvious. He is a partner in a Superiority Burger in Tokyo, but says he sees it as a one-off, not the start of a chain. And the new, relocated Superiority Burger is way more worthwhile and fun than any fast-casual outlet will ever be. In order for the restaurant to become a chain, it would have to be simplified and standardized so that it could run on a slippery slope. Instead, Mr. Headley complicated it by filling it with strange details, half-hearted jokes and quirky characters. Few restaurants would be more difficult to clone.

Sitting in a booth at Superiority Burger for an hour or so will give you a stronger sense of place than reading a few novels. Before Mr. Headley took over the lease, 119 Avenue A was the site of Odessa Restaurant, a Greek-owned coffee shop that descended from a Ukrainian-owned coffee shop next door. The neighborhood’s past bubbles up in the menu. (And not just the menu — I’d swear my bartender, Fowzy Butt, has been pouring drinks for me at half a dozen other places around Tompkins Square, some of which have been closed for 20 years.)

Most obviously there is stuffed cabbage, once available at a dozen Ukrainian and Polish kitchens in the East Village, though it was rarely stuffed with such a savory mix of mushrooms and sticky rice, or topped with a tomato-ginger gravy darkened with fresh blackberries . Are the pickled beets with fresh dill, fried hard pretzel shards, and dense schmears of jalapeño cream cheese a sideways look at borscht?

What about the collards sandwiched between triangles of the fluffy sesame-crusted focaccia that, at the old Superiority Burger, became date food—Focaccia Fridays? (The sign above the door on Avenue A now tentatively promises “Focaccia sometimes”.) Is it my imagination, or are the wrung-out, slightly acidic vegetables a tribute to spanakopita, which used to be on Odessa’s menu? Or maybe not – the cheese is cheddar, not feta. In any case, it is a spectacular sandwich.

The carrot ginger dressing on the house salad is clearly a shout out to the one that used to intrigue punks and students at Dojo on St. Marks. How about the bowl of lentils with wilted greens and a toasted slice of cornbread on top – does it remind anyone else of eating a Wee Dragon Bargain at Angelica Kitchen’s communal table, which lost sanctuary to lightly punitive first-wave vegetarianism on East Ninth Street? But Angelica’s cornbread was a stone heavy enough to anchor a tugboat; Superiority Burger’s is gracious and the lentils underneath are not punishing at all. They are soothing and energizing, like dal, and spiced with herbs that radiate warmth.

At first glance, Superiority Burger may seem like just another hipster retro joint in love with the visual style of diners and coffee shops. One thing that might give you that idea is the paper hat that Mr. Headley is wearing.

But I suspect it’s more than style to him, having seen him run around the tables, serving plates, delivering tofu-skin subs and telling a table of new regulars how he made a pot of beans first thing each morning . I don’t think he wants Superiority Burger to imitate a local coffee shop; he wants it to be one.

And at the same time he wants it to be the most original coffee shop you’ve ever seen.

The glass dessert case behind the counter, inherited from Odessa, is again full of cakes and pies. Mr. Headley has turned the desserts over to Darcy Spence, who seems to think of a new use for sugar and flour every time she takes a breath. Coconut cake is a fixture, but there are other erudite forays into the American baking repertoire, such as rhubarb tarts on flaky puff pastry doilies. Ropy swirls of orange blossom funnel cake with labneh gelato and blueberry preserves are pretty much a nut-for-note wrap of a vintage Nancy Silverton dessert, except she used blueberries.

There’s a little heated box at the end of the counter that comes into its own after midnight when it’s filled with vegan Cornish pasties and pre-packaged Night Burgers, regular Superiority Burgers minus the lettuce.

So the burger. It seems better now than in 2015, although I can’t say whether the improvement is in the slow-roasted tomatoes, the eggless mayonnaise, the grilled sandwiches, or the thick and impossibly moist patties formed from ground chickpeas, red quinoa, roasted carrots and walnuts, among other ingredients. Things strike differently today, too, when Kim Kardashian and others are paid to recommend ground beef substitutes made by well-capitalized entrepreneurs whose formulas are protected by multiple patents. Mr. Headley, on the other hand, has published its Superiority Burger recipe.

Will the after hours menu, which also includes Utz crab chips, supernaturally crispy “tofu fried tofu” (like fried chicken breast, but tastier and made without animals) and a few other treats, be enough to bring late night dining back to New York? Boy, I hope so.

At times, Superiority Burger seems to be composed entirely of unnecessary frills, arbitrary aspirations, and whispered messages that may or may not be understood. (Why, when you go to the bathroom, do you hear the jingles that play when the Tokyo subway doors close?)

Putting all these quirky quirks together, though, is solid mainstream restaurant values. The servers, who seem to be having as much fun as everyone else, are serious about helping you get the most out of your meal. You get real answers to your questions, not the rote recitations you get in expensive Michelin-baited tasting rooms where the servers’ eyes flash with panic when they need to be ad lib.

Not only is Superiority Burger more fun than fast-casual chains, which is easy. It’s also more engaging and lively than some restaurants costing many times as much. Maybe after midnight a few chefs will stop by for crab chips and a pie, and realize how boring fine dining has become. Wouldn’t that be cool?