Newstead Tower Public House

Best Burger

The key to the hamburger is the hamburger. If that's not a Zen koan, it should be. Too many burger joints view the humble patty — which, you know, just so happens to be a cornerstone of American culture — as a vacant lot on which they can build terrifying towers of caloric excess. (Yes, we're looking at you, Thickburger.) That ain't the case at Newstead Tower Public House, the new gastropub in Forest Park Southeast's Grove neighborhood. Here the star of the hamburger is the meat itself: a plump, juicy hunk o' chuck nestled between two halves of a soft, slighty sweet roll. But that's not any old ground chuck. It's grass-fed beef from Cape Girardeau's Fruitland Farms, and that's what really sets this burger apart. This is what beef should taste like, a clean, pure flavor that will make you wonder if you've ever really had a hamburger before.