As the air chill in New York City turns from crisp to punishing over the next few weeks, you should make it your mission to score one of the 12 Welsh rarebit burgers available each night at Lord’s on Laguardia Place in Greenwhich Village. More often than not, I roll my eyes at limited edition food “drops,” with their made-for-Tiktok built-in exclusivity. But in the case of this WRB, I’m not in the position to be performing persnickety cultural criticism, because my mouth is too full of burger. (Though, I did ask, and there’s a good reason for the fixed quantity: there’s only so much rarebit cheese leftover after it’s made for the restaurant’s signature toast, which comes with a Cantabrian anchovy draped minimally over the top.) Like everything to come out of Ed Szymanski’s kitchen, the burger is impeccably seasoned with a flavor profile that both evokes nostalgia and challenges the memory with a few twists. In this case, the Alpha Tolman cheese in the Guinness mustard, cheddar, and roux sauce—as well as the thickly sliced raw onion—ask you to hold a traditional rarebit, a Philly cheesesteak, and a diner burger in your mind, all at once.
Ella Quittner is a screenwriter and Family Style‘s writer-at-large. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Man Repeller, Bon Appétit, and across many group chats.