Superiority Burger – a punk drummer's vegetarian diner on Avenue A

Superiority Burger sits on Avenue A, directly across from Tompkins Square Park, inside a room that spent decades as a diner before Brooks Headley took it over. Headley is a former hardcore-punk drummer who became a celebrated pastry chef, and his restaurant is built on the idea that vegetables, not meat substitutes, can carry a kitchen's ambition. The first Superiority Burger opened round the corner in 2015 as a six-stool, mostly to-go shop; in 2023 it moved into its current, far larger home, keeping the old diner's booths and soda counter intact. The menu stays lacto-ovo vegetarian throughout, with a long run of vegan options, built around a quinoa-chickpea-carrot-walnut burger, slow-braised collards and a case of changing pies and ice creams. It holds a Bib Gourmand in the MICHELIN Guide, recognition for cooking that stays inventive without inflating the bill. The New York Times gave it three stars after the move, and The New Yorker followed with its own notice soon after.

01The room and the setting

Headley signed the lease in the summer of 2021 to take over the space formerly occupied by Odessa, a diner that had operated there for 26 years before closing during the pandemic. Rather than erase the nostalgia, he kept it almost entirely: the worn leather booths, the laminate tables, the cash register station and the vintage soda counter, which is, as locals who remember Odessa will tell you, the exact one from the old diner, repurposed now for Superiority's shakes and house sodas.

About 58 seats fill the room, roughly ten times the floor space of the original six-stool shop around the corner. The diner that came before even survives on the plate: stuffed cabbage, once an Odessa staple for late-night regulars who had landed there after shows at A7 nearby, returns on Superiority's menu filled with sticky rice and mushrooms instead of beef.

02The chef

Brooks Headley spent years as a hardcore-punk drummer before training as a pastry chef, eventually running the dessert kitchen at Del Posto, the Italian restaurant the New York Times rated four stars. In May 2013 the James Beard Foundation named him the country's Outstanding Pastry Chef for that work.

Insider tip

First-come, first-served seating; dinner nightly from 5pm; cash and cards accepted.

He left fine dining to open Superiority Burger in June 2015, trading an expensive dining room for a burger that once sold for seven dollars. In 2019 the Beard Foundation nominated him for Best Chef: New York City for Superiority Burger itself, and in 2024 TIME photographed him greeting regulars at the Avenue A counter for its list of the year's most influential people.

03The cooking

The kitchen is proudly lacto-ovo vegetarian, with what Headley describes as a sizable amount of vegan options alongside it. The signature burger is not an impression of meat: it is built from quinoa, chickpeas, carrots and walnuts, griddled and dressed with pickles, mustard and iceberg lettuce in the full-size 'Megamouth' format. Much of the bread, including the focaccia, comes out of the restaurant's own ovens.

Specials shift with the market and the mood — sweet-and-sour beets, burnt broccoli, a tofu Sloppy Dave simmered in a tangy, almost sweet tomato sauce that borrows its name and swagger from the sloppy joe. The kitchen does not chase consistency over invention, which is part of the point.

04What to order

Start with the Superiority Burger itself, pickles, muenster, mustard, roast tomato and mayo on a house bun, or the Collard Greens Sandwich, slow-braised greens and sharp cheese on sesame focaccia, which some regulars rate above the burger. The Yuba-Verde, built on Hodo City yuba and broccoli rabe, is another standing order.

From the specials case, ask for the stuffed cabbage filled with sticky rice and mushrooms, an homage to the diner this room used to be. Finish with the pearl pie, a scoop of oro-lychee ice cream, or a date shake if one is chalked up that day.

05Wine and drinks

The Avenue A room kept Odessa's old bar along with everything else, and Superiority now pours a full list of cocktails, including, Headley has noted with some pride, access to hard-to-find Suntory whisky. Non-drinkers are looked after too, with house sodas such as a pandan soda standing in for anything bottled.

06When to go and booking

Dinner service runs seven nights a week, a schedule the restaurant expanded to in the autumn of 2023, with doors opening at five in the afternoon. Seating is first-come, first-served rather than by reservation, and the room fills fast once the day's opening bell sounds — arriving right at five, or by six at the latest, is the surest way to get a booth before the wait starts.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.