{"id":196946,"date":"2026-04-14T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/196946\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:52:10","slug":"illusive-savoy-among-finalists-in-ny-best-burger-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/196946\/","title":{"rendered":"Illusive, Savoy among finalists in NY best burger competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two Capital Region restaurants are finalists in the Best NY Burger Competition, a promotion now in its 10th year and sponsored by the New York Beef Council.<\/p>\n<p>Illusive Restaurant &amp; Bar in Rensselaer and Savoy Taproom in Albany are among 10 finalists in the competition. They were winnowed by online voting from a pool of 45 that were chosen after receiving a minimum of five nominations from the public, said\u00a0Chrissy Claudio, the council\u2019s director of producer communications and consumer engagement. The nominations and voting were held in late winter and early spring.<\/p>\n<p>To decide the winner, a panel of anonymous judges will visit each finalist and sample its burgers. The competition previously held a burger cook-off but opted for anonymous visits to better gauge finalists\u2019 burgers the way consumers experience them, Claudio said.<\/p>\n<p>Illusive has 11 burgers on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.illusives.com\/#menu\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">its menu<\/a>, from a classic hamburger for $13 to the $18 Mick Jigga, with a Black Angus beef\u00a0patty, candied bacon, caramelized onions, Irish porter cheese, cherry-pepper mayonnaise and lettuce on toasted brioche. Located at 3 Ferry St., Illusive serves lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday, closed Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.savoyonlark.com\/eat\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Savoy\u2019s six burgers<\/a> range from $18 for a bacon-cheeseburger to $22 for one with bacon jam and brie and $24 for a vegan burger with a patty of Beyond-brand meat substitute. It is at 301 Lark St. and serves dinner from 5 p.m. daily.<\/p>\n<p>The other finalists are Ale &amp; Angus in Syracuse, Ben\u2019s Fresh in Port Jervis, Brewer Union Caf\u00e9 in Brewerton, Columbus Public House in Sherburne, Matteson Hotel in Ilion, Pound Town Burger Bar in Syracuse, Shelly\u2019s Deli in Endicott and Tap It Bar &amp; Grill in Rochester.<\/p>\n<p>The winner will be announced May 13 at the state Capitol in Albany during the May Beef Month Celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Capital Region restaurants are finalists in the Best NY Burger Competition, a promotion now in its 10th&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30394,1070,844,610,9,11,10,35844,821,31842],"class_list":{"0":"post-196946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-alco","9":"tag-food","10":"tag-latestnews","11":"tag-local","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-rensco","16":"tag-restaurants","17":"tag-table-hopping"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}