I Ate The Same Hamburger As Taylor Swift At The Polo Bar. Here’s How You Can Too

I didn’t exactly die over the food at The Polo Bar, but I did walk through a riot to make my reservation in time, and it was worth it.

Yes, blazing straight through a thousands-large mob of pro-Palestine rioters on Fifth Avenue was a small price to pay for an evening at the hyper-exclusive Midtown restaurant famously frequented by the upper crust of the world. (It also made my NY travels sound incredibly, admirably adventurous, like something from the pages of an Anthony Bourdain book – so all the better, right?)

Making It into NY’s Most Exclusive Not-Quite-Club

In all actuality, though the riot sounded exotic, traversing the crowd of not-so-peaceful protesters was the easy part of my journey to this bougie bar. 

Ralph Lauren's restaurant, The Polo Bar, is rather infamously regarded as a cozy meeting place for the upper echelon of East Coast society – a 21st century iteration of the Knickerbocker Club, replacing exorbitant membership fees with a bafflingly affordable menu. And for that reason, reservations are nearly impossible to procure.

Their page online (part of the greater Ralph Lauren website, because I guess the next logical step was for the Polo to add a restaurant to his fashion empire) makes it seem effortless: Our Reservations office is open from 10 a.m. Please call us at 212.207.8562 

And yet, as one person commented on the restaurant’s Instagram post in honor of National Burger Day: “If only it didn't take an act of Congress to get a reservation I could actually try this thing one day.”

Comparable levels of despondency resonate throughout the majority of the comments on The Polo Bar’s social content, ranging from lighthearted whining, wishing, and, dreaming to genuinely ill-spirited digs at the restaurant’s level of exclusivity, accompanied by threats to take their “time, family, and money elsewhere where it’s appreciated.”

According to most “mere mortals” (as they frequently refer to themselves) in the comments, the reservations desk keeps would-be patrons on hold for hours before they can speak to the maître d’…by which time all reservations have been snatched up. 

Thankfully I, for a weekend, had what said mortals clearly lacked – a top-tier concierge at a celebrated New York hotel. They got me a table as easily as they could’ve nabbed a hot dog from a street vendor. Of course, the rooms at that hotel were priced so high I had to take out a second job to afford one for the weekend (not kidding, wish I was) so keep that in mind, too.

If you don’t have the cash to spend on a luxury hotel room and don’t feel like starting a new career to afford one, I applaud you. However, since I have recently quit said second job and resigned myself to life amid mortals once more, I can offer us all a word of encouragement – in the same depressing comment sections on The Polo Bar’s posts, there are also small whispers of hope in the form of glowing reviews from non-elites who somehow, magically, reserved a table.

So whip out your phone, set an alarm for 10 a.m. EST exactly 30 days before the day you want to dine and have The Polo Bar on speed dial. (Ask your mom or grandma, who likely used to dial in for radio contests and TV giveaways, to give you some tips.) You never know – one day, you might find yourself dining amid royalty.

And, while I can’t guarantee if or when this day will come, I can assure you that, when it does, you’ll feel like royalty too.

Into the World of the Elite

By the time I made it to The Polo Bar, unscathed but freezing cold (did I mention I was wearing a cocktail dress and open-toed pumps for my five-and-a-half block walk between the hotel and bar in thirty-some degree weather?), my expectations were as high as the Trump Tower we’d passed on our way there. After all, if Hugh Jackman had seen fit to celebrate his birthday there the month before, then surely the place was worth this hassle. At least, I hoped.

Thankfully, the moment the bouncer (yes, a bouncer) welcomed us inside, we were met with warmth not only in temperature but also aesthetic. The restaurant’s main level featured a long, shining bartop of polished wood, flanked by leather-topped stools and hung with purse hooks to keep patrons’ Chanel and Hermes purses from kissing the ground. There was also a leather banquet, where I was seated and given complimentary bowls of toasted nuts and fried olives (delicious), as well as a cocktail menu.

Though the website emphasized both its snazzy dress code and no-photos policy, I snuck a few with my phone anyway before ordering a cocktail, grateful for the menu’s selection of zero-proof options. I slowly sipped and nibbled as, all around, NYC elite imbibed and indulged. Were there any celebrities in my midst? I tried not to stare, so I’m not sure. All I knew was, thanks to the impeccable service and delicious food, I felt like one myself. 

If It’s Good Enough for Taylor Swift, Is It Good Enough for Me?

The restaurant’s true test came with dinner itself. When our table was ready, we were ushered downstairs to a subterranean dining room, our drinks sent with us via a silver tray. Despite the perfectly starched cloth and golden lamp at my place, the first thing I noticed was the noise. This was no date-night restaurant or place for a luxurious dinner. This was a hotspot, filled to bursting and with a noise level so high it seemed to border on being more nightclub than night out. 

The couple seated next to us talked – loudly – about their house (I think it was new and somewhere in the Hamptons, maybe?) to the point that the overall noise was nearly a turnoff. But, soon enough, it all faded into the background of clinking silverware and china as the food captivated all of my senses. 

First out were giant Yorkshire puddings, served popover-style. I think they were nearly as large as my head, and I know they were perfectly eggy, steaming hot, and crackly between my fingers as I tore off my first bite. Despite the institution’s no-photos rule, no one seemed too put off by my furtive cell phone photography, and our waiter even helped me arrange a (dimly lit) shot of the table setting, complete with one of the iconic leather-covered menus in the background.

Our appetizer came shortly afterward – miniature pigs in a blanket which were petite and pleasant and tasted exactly like something I could make at home with a pack of hot dogs and a tube of crescent roll dough. Not that they were bad. Not at all! But surely celebrities ate better than this.

Then, out came the entreés, and I forgave Ralph (or whoever was running things in his kitchen that night) for creating comfort food, which was, at worst, too comfortable. My hamburger and my dining partner’s Reuben sandwich towered over their respective plates, dripping with meat and cheese and all things good and heavenly, accompanied by a cornet of pommes frites that loomed so high and large above our table it appeared to be on a quest to give the Empire State Building a run for its money.

And, yes, a cheeseburger is still a cheeseburger and a sandwich is still a sandwich, and you might make the case that neither item could survive the climb to the top of the fine dining world, and you would be right. But that didn’t keep either item from being impossibly, inimitably perfect. The meats were cooked to a state of medium-rare bliss, placed with precision on precisely proportional pieces of bread, and garnished with just enough – not too much! – sauce and accouterments so as to be well-seasoned but not overpowered. They were also huge. So huge, in fact, that I (who pride myself on cleaning my plate at every meal) couldn’t finish. This turned out to be a good thing, because next up was free coffee-flavored ice cream and shortbread cookies for my birthday. (I wondered briefly if Hugh had gotten the same treatment or if they’d rolled out an entire cake for him.) 

Leftovers (a.k.a. Final Thoughts)

I was too stuffed for dessert, but I took a slice of their seasonal pumpkin cheesecake (when in New York…) to go. I was glad I did, because it (plus my leftovers) won me a snazzy-looking doggie bag with “THE POLO BAR” emblazoned on its side. As I strolled back to my hotel at quarter ‘til eleven o’clock in that never-sleeping city, my brown paper bag gave me more street cred than any Chanel or Hermes ever could. (It also made me less likely to get mugged, because what pickpocket would expect to find a wad of cash or a collection of credit cards in a doggie bag?)

Back in my room, I collapsed into bed with my boxed-up cheesecake, making it about halfway through the slice before slipping into a blissful food coma, the kind where you close your eyes stuffed with wonderful things and wake up hungrier than ever for even more of them. It was a good thing, too, because the next day, I had another one of New York’s hardest-to-score reservations on my agenda.

But I knew, no matter where else my culinary travels in the Big Apple took me, no dining experience could rival the unctuous fattiness, comfort food charm, or well-seasoned perfection that was the Polo Bar Burger.

It was official: Ralph’s restaurant was worth braving a riot, and, well, if something’s good enough for one Taylor, then it’s good enough for me.

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