Club A Steakhouse

I know what you’re thinking: “Another steakhouse? Wake me up when it’s over.”

Actually, that’s what I thought when Club A Steakhouse opened two years ago in a part of town that already had plenty of them. We paid a visit the other night on the spur of the moment, when our original Saturday evening plans fell through, and Club A was available on OpenTable at short notice.

From 1977 to 2008, the space was Bruno, a Northern Italian restaurant that appealed to the Upper East Side moneyed set. The owner, an Albanian named Bruno Selimaj, decided that it was time for a makeover. Whoever suggested the name “Club A” needs to have their head examined.

Luckily, it’s the only bad decision Mr. Selimaj has made. He is a gracious host, and still in charge. The man knows how to run a restaurant.

The menu follows the “Luger-plus” model, with thick-cut Canadian bacon and sliced porterhouse for 2, 3, or 4 people as centerpieces, but with much more variety, better service, and a much more comfortable room than Luger itself.

We started with the bacon to share (below left)—surely the most inexpensive appetizer in midtown at $5. The kitchen divided it in two and sent out both halves on separate plates, each with its own serving of the house steak sauce. That’s not bad for $2.50 per person.

The porterhouse for two ($94; above right) was dry aged prime, a very good example if not the best I’ve seen. If we are to pick nits, it was cut a bit more thinly than I would like, and the chef erred on the side of rare, rather than the medium rare we’d asked for. It was a shade larger than the typical porterhouse for two, and we took a good bit of it home.

The side dishes—Five Cheese “Truffle” Mac ($10) and Sautéed Asparagus ($11) were both perfect.

I haven’t yet seen the steakhouse that serves a complimentary bowl of grapes on ice after the meal (right). I wonder where they got that idea? It wasn’t a comp, as we saw it on every table. After that, who needs dessert?

As part of the renovation after Bruno closed, the walls were redone in bordello red. The wall is covered with photos of past guests, perhaps the room’s least attractive features. But the tables are large and comfortable.

The restaurant has one of the best collections of wine decanters I’ve seen, and every bottle is decanted. Service is attentive and first-rate.

Although we got a Saturday night 8:00 p.m. reservation with ease, by 9:00 the room was nearly full. We are guessing that Club A has a cadre of neighborhood regulars, as there has been little publicity to speak of. It deserves to be better known.

Club A Steakhouse (240 E. 58th St. between Second & Third Ave., Upper East Side)

Food: **
Service: **
Ambiance: **
Overall: **

Le Relais de Venise

Le Relais de Venise “L’Entrecôte” garnered a bit of press—only a little—when it opened last summer in East Midtown— oddly enough, on the same block as the Four Seasons. The few reviews it got told of a “meh” steak in a “meh” sauce, and that was that.

Then Sam Sifton shocked us all by choosing the place for his fourth review, pronouncing it “terrific,” and awarding one star.

The concept at L’Entrecôte is simple enough. There is only one order: salad and steak frites for $24. Across the street, at the Four Seasons, you can’t even get an appetizer for that.

Desserts are extra, but not exorbitant, at around $5–7 each. A glass of the house Bordeaux is just $5.75. None of that is expensive by Manhattan standards, where at most top steakhouses the steak alone is around $40—more at some places.

Still, even if you skip dessert (as I did) and drink just one glass of the wine, you’ll approach $40 with tax and tip. There are plenty of cheap eats at that price, and when only one item is served, it ought to be great. It is not.

What’s served here is better called “nourishment” than cuisine. As Sifton noted, you could be out in twenty minutes, and there is no reason to linger any longer. The space is cavernous, and neither warm nor especially inviting. I wonder how often they’ll fill it?

Despite all that space, there is no coat check.

The menu announces, “Today, trimmed Entrecôte Steak [i.e. rib steak] ‘Porte Maillo’ with its famous sauce, French fries and Green salad with walnuts.” I love that word Today, as if you could get something different tomorrow. You can’t.

A waitress dressed in a French maid’s uniform asks if you’ll have your steak blue, rare, medium, or well. I choose rare, and she writes a big “R” in magic marker on the white mat that covers the table. With so little to keep track of, do they really need an aide memoire?

That house wine arrives. It is certainly not over-priced, at $5.75. But one glass of it will be enough.

The salad (below left) comes within minutes— fast enough to make me suspect a bunch of them are made up in advance. After a few bites of the soggy lettuce, my fears are confirmed.

In contrast, the steak seems to be prepared to order. The waitress serves about half of it onto your plate, and ladles on the sauce. The other half is left on a warming tray at a serving station nearby. When you’ve finished your first helping, she’ll bring over the tray and serve the rest. It’s a gimmick, as the portion is not so large that it would get cold if it were all served at once.

The meat, as you’d expect, is not the best, but it is certainly edible, and cooked correctly to the rare I had asked for. The fries are decent. The sauce is a secret, but the consensus is that it includes chicken livers, mustard, and pepper. I thought I tasted mushrooms, too. It is good enough to conceal the fact that the beef is nothing special.

The servers are plenty attentive. You could argue that the place is over-staffed, given how little is expected of them. The restaurant fulfills its modest aims acceptably, but I’m sure you can find more interesting ways to spend $40.

Le Relais de Venise (590 Lexington Avenue at 52nd Street, East Midtown)

Food: Acceptable
Service: Decent
Ambiance: Acceptable
Overall: Satisfactory

The Bone-In Strip at Minetta Tavern

When Frank Bruni pronounced Minetta Tavern “the best steakhouse in the city” and awarded an improbable three stars, our eyes rolled.

“There he goes again,” we thought, conjuring up the image of countless restaurants over-rated during his tenure.

But we’ll give Bruni credit for one thing: the man likes his steak, and he likes it the same way we do: dry-aged prime, with a crunchy charred crust. So if Bruni thought Minetta was the city’s best, we figured it certainly wouldn’t be bad. We had to try it.

There are really only two options, a bone-in New York strip and a côte de boeuf for two. I’m leaving aside the Tavern Steak ($21), which looked pretty good when another diner had it, but it’s neither aged nor prime. And I’m also ignoring the filet mignon, which can never be a serious test. And since I was alone, that côte de boeuf wasn’t an option either.

The strip it was. And, oh my! was it good: more marbled than the typical strip, cooked on the bone to give it more flavor, and including a “tail” of half meat, half fat that most restaurants trim off. Equally impressive, it was just $36.

I cannot say for sure that it was better than the Steak for One at Wolfgang’s, which was $0.50 more expensive the last time I had it. But it was certainly as good, and certainly more remarkable for being served on the bone, which few restaurants do.

A side of leafy spinach ($8) was commendably done, but not memorable the way the steak was.

Once again, I sat at the bar, which had just one stool available at 5:30 p.m. Service was a bit more distracted than last time, when I had the burger. This place is bursting at the seams. When I left, at around 6:45, there was a hostess standing outdoors with names on a clipboard. I wouldn’t call her a bouncer—actually, she was quite friendly—but I gather her job was to turn away walk-ins.

We’ll go ahead and give the steak 3 stars, since we haven’t had better, but you’ll have to put up with some hassles if you want to try it.

Minetta Tavern (113 MacDougal Street between Bleecker & W. 3rd Streets, Greenwich Village)

Food: ***
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: **

City Hall

The TriBeCa restaurant City Hall has been quietly turning out reliable food for just over a decade. In the Times, Ruth Reichl awarded two stars in January 1999. It’s located in a gorgeous landmarked 1863 cast iron building not far from the real City Hall. The renovation—a wide, comfortable room decorated with life-size vintage photos—is still fresh and elegant.

You don’t hear much about City Hall. The restaurant doesn’t get its name in the press. The menu seems to offer the same “steakhouse-plus” cuisine it die when Reichl reviewed it. My sense is that it attracts more of a lunch crowd, partly due to its location. On a recent Thursday evening, it was less than half full.

We started with a small tomato soup as amuse-bouche and moved onto the bone-in double-cut Delmonico for two ($82) with a side of hand-cut fries ($9).

The beef was dry-aged prime, and tasted like it, but didn’t quite have the flavor intensity or the rich char of the better ribeyes in town.

Service was more friendly, and the ambiance more pleasant than most steakhouses. The deep wine list has won awards, and on a cursory glance looked well worth exploring. However, we weren’t in a wine mood, and did well by the respectable beer selection (two Saratogas, $7 each).

City Hall seems, in short, like a restaurant you can count on, but not one worth traveling for.

City Hall (131 Duane St. between Church & West Broadway, TriBeCa)

Food: *
Service: **
Ambiance: **
Overall: *

The Burger at Primehouse

  

The recession has forced us to abandon steakhouses—no small sacrifice, as ribeye steak is practically our favorite dish. We make an exception for burgers. With that as our mission, we revisited Primehouse New York last week.

On our last visit, we noted that Primehouse has one of the most comfortable bar stools in the city, with a soft cushion for your derrière and firm, cushioned back. I know plenty of places where the dining room isn’t as comfortable as the bar at Primehouse.

In an era where $16 burgers are routine, the $12 charged at Primehouse must be considered a bargain. I can’t remember the last time I had a burger that cheap at a fine-dining restaurant. Although it’s the least expensive entrée (available only at the bar), they serve it with a flourish and all the fixin’s, marching to your table with the same wheeled cart they’d use if you’d ordered the $79 seafood platter.

For $12, you’re not getting a custom blend of organically-raised grass-fed Wagyu, but it’s a respectable burger I’d happily eat again. My only complaint is that the patty needed to be a bit broader, with less of a “dome” on top.

On a Tuesday evening, the dining room wasn’t at all full, but the bar was doing a brisk business. Evidently others have figured out that it’s the best way to enjoy Primehouse.

Primehouse New York (381 Park Avenue South at 27th Street, Gramercy/Flatiron)

In Brief: Beacon

Note: Beacon closed in late 2012 after 13 years in business, due to a rent increase that the restaurant could not absorb.

I had the $35 prix fixe on Thursday, a follow-up to the pre-theater supper we enjoyed there the week before. (I gave much more background in my earlier post.)

I can’t stress enough how solid this place is. They’re not doing anything complicated, but what they do is executed perfectly. I had the wood-roasted oysters, the rotisserie chicken, and the ginger bread pudding. The chef–owner, Waldy Malouf, thinks of the little things, like serving warm milk with coffee.

Beacon (25 W. 56th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Food: **
Service: **
Ambiance: **
Overall: **

Halfsteak

Note: Halfsteak, along with is parent restaurant Craftsteak, closed in late 2009. A new restaurant from the same team, Colicchio & Sons, replaced it in early 2010.

*

Not a week goes by without further retrenchment in the restaurant industry. Even Tom Colicchio’s sainted Craft empire is hunkering down for a long recession. This week, the front room at Craftsteak rebranded itself “Halfsteak,” where every dish is under $15.

I’ve visited Craftsteak three times (1, 2, 3), but I’ve been wholly satisfied only once. To be fair, the first two visits were early on, before Colicchio fired the executive chef and bought new broiling equipment. But I continue to read mixed reports, suggesting a visit to Craftsteak is very much a crapshoot. It’s a tough value proposition for a place where almost all steaks are above $50.

I’m not visiting many steakhouses these days. Even if I was, I’d have to think twice before returning to Crafsteak. But the sub-$15 menu at Halfsteak has my attention. This is a place where one doesn’t mind just “dropping in.”

Halfsteak occupies the casual front dining room at Craftsteak. Everything is priced at odd multiples of a half-dollar. Snacks are $6½, salads $7½, small plates $9½, sandwiches $11½, “one-pots” $13½, desserts $4½, and the namesake halfsteak with fries is $14½. [Click on the menu for a larger image.]

The concept extends to cocktails ($7½), half pints of beer ($3½) and wines by the glass ($10½). Even the notoriously exorbitant wine list has been dialed down. There are twenty bottles on offer, all $55 or less (most under $50). The beers are thoughtful choices from small, artisanal producers; not Budweiser and Schlitz.

Craftsteak’s chef de cuisine is Shane McBride. As he did at his short-lived midtown chophouse 7Square, he isn’t afraid to challenge his audience. I am quite sure that fried tripe is not on this menu because there was overwhelming demand for it. Likewise brisket with sauerkraut or a duck confit omelet.

I wasn’t too hungry, so I ordered just two snacks ($6.50 ea.), the Smoked Chicken Wings with White BBQ Sauce (above left) and the Lamb Spare Ribs with Cucumber Raita (above right). The wings were wonderful, perfectly seasoned and slightly spicy. Where on earth did that white barbecue sauce come from? The lamb ribs were slightly dry and not quite warm enough. Total bill with two half-pints of beer: $20.

The restaurant’s two-star service model hasn’t changed. I almost laughed when I asked for a wet-nap to wash my hands after all that finger food, and they brought out a hot towel. Both the main dining room and the front room were doing a respectable business, but neither was full between 7 and 8pm on a Thursday evening.

The current recession has taken its sad toll on many restaurants, but among those that remain open there are many good deals to be had. Halfsteak is one of the best around.

“Halfsteak” (85 Tenth Avenue at 15th Street, Far West Chelsea)

Beacon

Note: Click here for a more recent visit to Beacon.

Beacon, a midtown steakhouse, was completely off my radar until eGullet’s “Fat Guy” raved about the tasting menu served on Thursday nights. It’s currently $98 for 12 courses, including winees. That would be a remarkable value even if a few of the courses were duds—not that they are. Subsequent reports bore out Fat Guy’s recommendation (Frank Bruni reviewed it late last year), but it was impossible to get in (only 6 seats, only on Thursdays), and I don’t usually fancy such a heavy meal on a weeknight.

From the beginning, Beacon was more than just an average steakhouse. In the Times, William Grimes awarded two stars in 1999: “Organized around an open kitchen and a huge wood-burning oven, it delivers uncomplicated, big-flavored food, emphasizing fresh, seasonal ingredients. That’s all, and that’s enough.”

Like many restaurants, Beacon has felt the bite of the recession. The $35 “Restaurant Week” menu has been extended at least until the end of February, and perhaps indefinitely. Deals abound, such as a $44 pp. family style meal on Sunday evenings, with bottles of wine under $35, and no corkage if you bring your own.

The normal menu features dry-aged Niman Ranch steaks, but there’s a wide variety of other choices, most of them revolving around the wood-burning oven.

The chef/owner, Waldy Malouf, has a lot of seats to fill. On a recent Tuesday evening, the vast tri-level space was perhaps 60% occupied, which is better than many restaurants, but probably not good enough, given midtown rents. I also suspect that many patrons are doing as we did, and ordering at the bottom end of the menu.

A mixed green salad with herb vinaigrette and goat cheese (below left) was all you could ask of a $13 salad. The burger and fries ($21; below right) were terrific. It’s Niman Ranch beef and tastes dry-aged. I couldn’t help but compare it to the over-hyped LaFreida Black Label blend served at City Burger.

The Beacon burger is $5 more than the City Burger product. But City Burger is a fast-food joint with styrofoam containers, plastic trays, and minimal counter seating. Beacon is a full-service restaurant, with waiters, white tablecloths, cloth napkins, silverware, three kinds of homemade bread, etc. On top of that, their burger was better (thicker, juicier, tastier) than the one Mr. Cutlets has been shilling at City Burger, and their fries were better too.

It was about as impressive as a salad, burger, and fries can be.

Beacon (25 W. 56th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Center Cut

Note: Ka-Boom! Jeffrey Chodorow fails again: Center Cut closed in August 2009. Ed’s Chowder House, from chef Ed Brown of eighty one, replaced it.

*

I dropped in at Center Cut a couple of weeks ago for a pre-show dinner. I wasn’t feeling very hungry, so I ordered the $39 prix fixe. You choose four dishes, served in pairs on rectangular plates that look like two normal dinner plates fused together.

An heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad was very good, but so-called five-alarm chili tasted about three alarms less bold than it should be. Despite the standard advice about non-steak entrées at steakhouses, I ordered shrimp scampi, which turned out to be excellent. But a side dish of Balsamic Caramelized Cippolini Onions misfired: I gave up after a few cloying bites.

The prix fixe comes with a cookie plate as a standard dessert. The cookies looked terrific, but I was full and didn’t try them.

The bread service is wonderful—a fluffy roll the size of a large brick, served hot. The rest of the service was also very good—a significant improvement over my last visit. The only Chodorow Moment® was the attempt to upsell a Wagyu steak for $10 more.

There have been some menu tweaks. The “Flintstone Ribs” I had last time are no longer available. So too the Glazed Korean Short Ribs that Gael Greene had. Those, unfortunately, were two of the more interesting items on the original menu.

Business was much more brisk than I expected. Center Cut isn’t selling out, but I suspect they’re more than covering the rent.

Center Cut (44. W. 63rd St. between Broadway & Columbus Ave., Upper West Side)

Food: *
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *

A. J. Maxwell's Steakhouse

A. J. Maxwell’s Steakhouse arrived during the steakhouse glut of 2006, when new entries in the genre were opening every other week. Critics ignored the place, as there was no celebrity or concept to distinguish it from all of the others.

The location has a bit of history. In the 1960s and ’70s, it housed Forum of the 12 Caesars, where waiters donned togas, and praetorian helmets served as ice buckets. Elaborate faux Roman mosaics, which more recent restaurants had covered over, were rediscovered during the renovation. At A. J. Maxwell’s, you can see them again, in all their glory.

A few months ago, we dropped in for a pre-theater meal. It’s an attractive, comfortable space, and service is better than in most classic steakhouses. The menu is expensive, even by steakhouse standards, no doubt reflecting midtown rents. There are nearly a dozen seafood and fish entrées, and they don’t seem to be afterthoughts, unlike, say, the salmon at Peter Luger.

Thick-cut Canadian Bacon in the Peter Luger mold ($3.50; above left) was just fine. Dry-aged ribeye wasn’t bad, but at $47 it needed to be terrific. I suspect it was USDA choice (the default assumption when “prime” isn’t stated), as I didn’t feel or taste the marbling a first-class ribeye ought to have.

A. J. Maxwell’s offers a civilized midtown meal, but steak conoisseurs won’t be putting it on their regular rotation.

A. J. Maxwell’s Steakhouse (57 W. 48th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Food: *
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *