Keens Steakhouse

I had an errand to run near Herald Square yesterday. Keens Steakhouse is the only decent restaurant nearby, so I dropped in for a light supper. A bit before 6:00 p.m., they were already nearly full, which is remarkable for a restaurant this enormous that is not in the theater district. Had I arrived just a few minutes later, I would have had to wait for a table.

There’s a casual “pub” at Keens that doesn’t take reservations. You can order from the over-priced dining room menu, but the pub also has its own menu that, if not cheap, is at least reasonable. I’ve written about Keens a number of times, so I’ll get right to the beef.

Prime Rib Hash ($16.50; left) caught my eye. It’s basically a play on corned beef hash, with diced prime rib as the main ingredient, and a fried egg replacing the usual gravy. In the interest of science, I had to try it.

The verdict? It’s pretty good, though surely not meant to be dinner on its own. Four people could share it as an appetizer. It’s that big. So naturally, I ate the whole thing myself (and nothing else).

For its steaks, Keens charges premium prices for a second-tier product. The décor is one-of-a-kind, but you always have the feeling that the staff is thinking about the next thousand customers.

They do have a few dishes no one else is serving, especially the incomparable mutton chop, to which I can now add the Prime Rib Hash.

Keens Steakhouse (72 W. 36th Street, east of Sixth Avenue, West Midtown)

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

Center Cut

[Horine via Eater]

Note: Center Cut closed, replaced by Ed’s Chowder House.

In the increasingly compelling Lincoln Center pre-theater market, the latest entry is Jeffrey Chodorow’s new steakhouse, Center Cut. With 27 restaurants to his name—I think that’s the correct count, unless another has opened or closed in the last 15 minutes—Chodorow doesn’t linger over his projects. He’s had some hits (Asia de Cuba), which are enough to subsidize his many failures.

Center Cut is in the Empire Hotel, directly across the street from Lincoln Center. You’d think it’s the perfect location for a restaurant, but many have come and gone over the 27 years I’ve been watching. Center Cut ought to make it. Steakhouses seldom fail in New York, and this one pushes plenty of populist buttons. The space is lovely, albeit over-built. The menu is straightforward. It’s neither as silly as Chodorow’s now-closed Wild Salmon, nor as cynical as his still-open, but deathwatched, Kobe Club.

This is, of course, a Chodorow production, so you should expect to be mildly annoyed. They wouldn’t transfer our bar tab to our table. Although the restaurant was almost empty, they seated us right next to another party. The hostess supplied menus, “And your server will be able to give you a wine list.” We waited a while, and no server appeared, but fortunately the table next to us had a wine list they no longer needed. I guess there was a good reason, after all, for seating us so close together. The server finally arrived, with Jeffrey Chodorow’s patented Treatise on Upselling firmly in tow.

There are a baker’s dozen signature cocktails, many of them with operatic names (“The Tristan,” “The Isolde”). When you see that they’re $14–17, perhaps you’re not surprised that management is pushing them hard. I think we were asked three times if we’d like to order one. Classic cocktails, such as a Tom Collins or a Side Car, are a few dollars cheaper.

Like most of Chodorow’s places, the menu offers a lot to ponder. For starters, there are eight appetizers ($12–19), five soups ($13–15), and six salads ($9–15), plus a raw bar. For the main course, there are sixteen composed dishes in various categories ($29–41, not counting lobster, for which no price is listed) and six “center cuts,” served à la carte ($35–41 for one, $59–78 for two). For steak, the filet seems to be the best option: you can have it four different ways. There is no porterhouse, though there’s a T-bone for two ($56). There are six available steak sauces and ten sides ($7 each). On top of that, there’s a $39 pre- or post-theater prix fixe, served from 5–7 p.m., or after 10 p.m.

The restaurant’s mantra is, “Where Style & Sustainability Meet.” On the wine list, purveyors are marked with little logos if they’re “Organic,” “Sustainable,” or “Biodynamic.” If you don’t know what those terms mean, don’t worry: there’s a little essay that explains it. The steaks, from Brandt Beef, are alleged to be “natural, humanely-raised, antibiotic and hormone free.” Perhaps I spoke too soon when I said the concept was free of sillyness or cynicism.

Bread service was terrific—a hot Parker House roll (above)—though the butter needed to be softer.

 

I started with the Slow Roasted Berkshire Bacon ($12; above left), which would have been fine enough on its own, and didn’t need a bed of bitter-tasting “beer roasted onions.” A Caesar Salad ($13; above right) was over-dressed.

 

The menu warns that its “Flintstone” Brandt Beef Ribs ($32; above left) are “for two or one ‘really hungry person’.” That warning is accurate. The foreshortening of the photo doesn’t do justice to the amount of food you get. Two could easily share this dish, especially if you also order sides. According to the server, the BBQ sauce is a hand-me-down from chef Bradley Day’s family. If so, the Day household was probably a pretty good place to eat. Both the sauce and the meat were done perfectly.

My girlfriend found the prime rib ($35; above right) a bit too salty and not flavorful enough, though I had no objection to the small piece of it that I tasted.

 

Both side dishes, Potatoes Dophinoise (above left) and Roasted Corn & Manchego Gratin (above center) were excellent. It was good to see compelling options beyond the usual steakhouse classics. Eggplant Fries don’t float my boat, but the Wild Mushroom Strudel is one to try next time.

The wine list is almost all young (2004 or later), and there aren’t many bargains. Except for Beaujolais, nearly all the red bottles are above $65. If three-star restaurants like Café Boulud and Corton can offer a whole page of wines under $60, surely other places can too. I ordered a 2006 Brouilly at $40, mainly because we were going to the opera and I knew we weren’t going to finish it. With most reds by the glass priced at $14 or higher (and I wouldn’t have ordered the ones that weren’t), it seemed like the way to go.

For a nearly-empty restaurant, service ought to have been a bit more attentive. A manager buzzed around the few occupied tables, correcting the staff’s many oversights. The server was a decent enough fellow when you had his attention.

There were hits and misses here, but it looks like one can put together a respectable meal at Center Cut. Most steaks are priced below $40, and there are even some entrées in the high $20s. Those prices aren’t low enough to qualify as bargains, but they are below a number of other steakhouses that have opened in recent years. The bill mounts quickly if you order wine and side dishes, but you can still put together a decent meal here for less than the average Manhattan steakhouse.

Service was uneven, and I’d like to think it will get better with time, except that this is a Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant, and some of the glitches seem to be in China Grill Management’s corporate DNA. I’d certainly like to see more people in the cavernous dining room, lest this restaurant suffer the fate of so many others in the Empire Hotel.

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

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

Porter House Evolves

I dropped in at Porter House New York last night for a quick bite. On a Thursday evening at around 6:30 p.m., the restaurant was mostly empty. Many servers and runners were just standing around. As in the past, the clientele included a number of families with small children.

I wasn’t that hungry, so I had the Skirt Steak, at $28 the second-cheapest entrée (after the chicken, $27). This is a second-string cut of meat, but Porter House gives it a first-rate preparation, with a nice smokey char and an Argentine chimichurri sauce.

Since my last visit, Porter House has wisely dropped its plats du jour—dishes that are served only one night of the week. The Cowboy Steak, formerly available only on Thursdays, is now offered every day. On a less happy note, that steak was $38 fifteen months ago; it is now $45.

The “porterhouse” conceit has been scaled back. There were once porterhouses not just of beef, but also lamb, veal, pork, and even monkfish; only the beef and the veal options remain. There were once more than half-a-dozen seafood entrées; there are now only four.

There are, of course, other entrées: hangar steak, filet mignon, chili-rubbed ribeye (not worthwhile at $48), lamb chops. But with a few exceptions (“Duck Steak”), the restaurant is evolving closer to the classic steakhouse, albeit with one of the world’s best views.

Bread service remains a strength, with three excellent house-made breads and a soft serving of butter. I didn’t order wine, but the wine list didn’t seem quite as egregiously priced as it was last time. Aside from that, I had a somewhat dour server who seemed displeased with his lot in life. Come to think of it, nobody seemed especially pleased. An empty restaurant will do that.

In a sense, Porter House is a somewhat less interesting restaurant than it was before. But the steaks remain top-notch, and the ambiance is more comfortable than most steakhouses.

Porter House New York (Time-Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle, 4th floor)

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

Bern's Steakhouse

 

The words “fine dining” and “Tampa, Florida” seldom occur in the same sentence. For a recent family celebration, only one restaurant came to mind: Bern’s Steakhouse. It is the one Tampa restaurant with an international reputation, founded largely on its 700,000-bottle wine cellar, believed to be the largest privately-held wine collection in the world.

That collection is so large that about 80% of it is not even stored at the restaurant, but in a warehouse across the street. The 212-page novel-length wine list is a massive tome, including bottles hundreds of years old. The list of wines available by the glass (around 150) is more than most restaurants offer by the bottle.

The restaurant, named for Bern Laxer, has been at this site since 1956. Laxer’s son, David, is now in charge.

The building, not originally a restaurant, is unimpressive from the outside. But once you get in, the rest of Bern’s is as overwhelming as its wine list. Its eight dining rooms, each with a different theme, seat up to 350. Our party of eight was in a room featuring enormous photographic mural of the Rhone valley.

Bern’s doesn’t do anything small. The menu goes on for eighteen pages, several of which are long essays explaining how—in the restaurant’s favorite phrase—“We do things differently here.” Want to start with caviar? There are twenty-one selections, priced from $20–220 per ounce. Want steak tartare? Bern’s offers it four different ways.

The steak portion of the menu goes on for four pages, because Bern’s can do nothing without lecturing you. There are fifty-one ordering options—a function of the cut of meat and the desired thickness—priced anywhere from $29.10 for a six-ounce filet mignon, to $233.12 a sixty-ounce strip sirloin that feeds six. You’d think they could round the cents on a $233 steak.

Bern’s serves USDA prime beef, aged 5–8 weeks. They are aggressive about trimming fat and bone before cooking, so their eight-ounce steak has more edible content than it would at other steakhouses. The menu claims that they buy about 3–4 pounds of beef for every pound they serve.

Most of the steaks are around $35–40 per person, but Bern’s doesn’t follow the typical steakhouse à la carte model. Every entrée also includes French onion soup, a house salad, a baked potato, onion rings, and vegetables. Dinner for six adults and two children was $419 before tax and tip, and that figure included the wine—more on that below—and cocktails. The same dinner in New York would cost at least double that.

  

As I studied the wine list, I could hardly contain myself as I saw one bargain after another. I settled on a magnum of 1967 Julien Devèze Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which was around $140. The sommelier tried to upsell me to a bottle that was $100 more, but after I declined, he brought back the 1971, which he insisted was better, and at $126 was less expensive than the bottle I’d asked for.

To put that in perspective, at the New York wine-themed restaurant Veritas, the cheapest magnum of Châteauneuf-du-Pape costs $175, and it’s a 1999, twenty-eight years younger than the one we had. Veritas has only a handful of choices older than 1990, and only one older than 1980, whereas Bern’s has a long list of bottles going back to at least the 1960s.

The wine was superb, though I don’t have much to compare it to. In New York, a bottle that old, if you could find it, would cost the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment.

 

Everyone loved the French onion soup (above left), but a plate of “cheese toast” (above right)—basically melted cheese on saltine crackers—wasn’t much good at all.

 

The house salad (above left) was just fine, while my son ordered the caesar salad (above right) for $9.95 extra, which our waiter prepared tableside, in a multi-step process that seemed to take fifteen minutes.

My girlfriend and I shared the 16 oz. Delmonico ($69.34), which the restaurant recommends as a portion for two. It doesn’t look that big, but we filled up quickly, given all of the other food included. The steak itself was just about perfect, with a nice exterior char, marbling, and the nutty, tangy flavor that comes from long aging.

Vegetables were a mixed bag. The onion rings were stringy and greasy, and the other vegetables on the plate were rather dull, but the baked potato was wonderful. Most restaurants would leave it to each guest to apply the fixin’s, but our waiter split each potato at tableside and applied sour cream, bacon, and chives according to each diner’s preference.

Service in the main dining room was excellent. All of Bern’s waiters train for a full year before they’re permitted to serve customers on their own. Garnishes and sauces are all applied tableside, and the waiter himself serves and clears every dish.

 

Be sure to ask for a kitchen and wine cellar tour, normally given between dinner and dessert. It takes about fifteen minutes, and is well worth it.

Dessert is such an unusual experience that you should order something even if you’re not hungry. It’s served upstairs in the Harry Waugh Dessert Room (named for a famous wine collector). It’s actually not a room, but a rabbit’s warren of many rooms: to be exact, forty-eight separate alcoves of varying sizes, each shaped like a wine cask, that can accommodate between two and twelve guests.

No one will be surprised that dessert here, like everything else, is over the top. The menu is four pages long, and has about 60 selections. It comes with yet another wine list, this one 42 pages long, with another 1,800 selections (armagnacs, cognacs, scotches, brandies, ports, etc.)

 
Left: Dulce de Leche Liquid Center Cake ($10.95); Right: Tiramisu ($9.95)

 
Left: Chocolate-Chocolate-Chocolate ($10.95); Right: Macadamia Nut Sundae ($10.00)

We were mildly disappointed with a Macadamia Nut Sundae, if only because its billing on the menu (“best sundae in the world”) would have been tough for any dessert to live up to. I don’t think anyone finished their desserts (how could they?) but there were vague nods of satisfaction around the table.

Service in the dessert room was nowhere near as polished as in the main dining room. The waiter’s recommendations weren’t quite as good as they were cracked up to be, and on two occasions it took a major hunting expedition to find him.

The overall dessert room bill, including drinks, was $75.60 before tax and tip.

*

After you get past the steaks, there is some unevenness at Bern’s. Any restaurant with such a long menu is bound to have some soft spots. But the overall experience is incomparable, and the wine list ranks with the great pyramids as one of the wonders of the world.

Bern’s Steakhouse (1208 South Howard Avenue, Tampa, Florida)

Food: ***
Wine & Spirits: ****
Service: ***
Ambiance: ***
Overall: ***

Uncle Jack's Steakhouse

New York’s bustling steakhouse industry has settled into three distinct camps: classic, modern, and Peter Luger clones.

Classic steakhouses feature fairly predictable menus, old-school waiters (always men), and throwback décor (mahogany paneling, white tablecloths, oil paintings). You often see large, boistrous, all-male parties at these places; they’re much favored by investment bankers celebrating the latest deal, and so forth. Sparks and Keens are typical classic steakhouses.

Modern steakhouses are those that break the mold, usually by offering non-steak items you can take seriously, more inventive side dishes, friendlier service, and more contemporary décor. BLT Prime and Craftsteak head up this category.

The Luger clones are a variant on the classic steakhouse, but there are enough of them to list separately. The key giveaway is a menu that emphasizes “Steak for One” (Two, Three, or Four), the famous thick-cut Canadian bacon, and German-fried potatoes as a side dish. Examples include Wolfgang’s and Mark Joseph.

Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse is firmly in the classic mold, and it may be the best of the bunch. I loved my first visit there, 2½ years ago, even if my three-star rating was utterly crazy. I don’t know what took me so long to get back, as the Ninth Avenue location is practically on the way home. Anyhow, I finally got back again the other night.

I was enormously impressed with a truncheon-sized ribeye ($45) with a beautiful exterior char. Only at Strip House have I seen it bettered.

I was impressed with the wine list, too: a hefty tome with plenty of decent bottles below the $50 mark, and wines by the glass that are actually printed. At most of the classic and Luger-style steakhouses, the waiter just intones, “Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Noir,” as if it were irrelevant which Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz, or Pinot Noir they were serving.

The décor, I must admit, is a little tacky, with “Lobster,” “Caviar,” etc. painted in big block letters along the wall. In other respects, Uncle Jack’s has the standard steakhouse ambiance nailed.

Service is better here, with waiters who don’t seem as bored as most steakhouse waiters, and who circle back frequently to check up on you.

Uncle Jack’s doesn’t get as much publicity as the other classic steakhouses, but I am not sure why. On the basis of my visits, I much prefer it to Keens or Sparks—to give but two eamples. There are now three outposts of Uncle Jack’s: the original in Bayside, the one I visited on Ninth Avenue, and the newest branch in West Midtown, on 56th Street.

Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse (440 Ninth Ave. between 34th & 35th Sts., Hell’s Kitchen)

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

Update: Keens Steakhouse

 

Note: Click here for more visits to Keens Steakhouse.

My girlfriend, son and I had a pre-theater dinner at Keens Steakhouse last week. I ordered the incomparable Mutton Chop ($45.00), which I think is the best item on the menu. My girlfriend had the sirloin (43.50), which wasn’t quite as tender it should be.

Keens is one of the few NYC steakhouses that offers prime rib. The only option shown on the dinner menu is a so-called King’s Cut ($49.50). The perceptive server guessed that a twelve-year-old probably wasn’t going to finish such a massive portion, so he offered us the English Cut ($28.00), normally served only in the downstairs “pub”.

Fries ($8.00) could easily become addictive. We didn’t order a bottle of wine, but a glass of the respectable house cabernet was a remarkably cheap $8.50.

While the time-warp ambiance at Keens is matchless, its steaks are a notch below other places in town while being several dollars more expensive. The huge two-story space is built for volume, and servers aren’t as attentive as they should be. But for the mutton chop or the prime rib, Keens is always worth the occasional visit.

Keens Steakhouse (72 W. 36th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Update: Staghorn Steakhouse

Kalina via Eater

I returned to Staghorn Steakhouse recently for a pre-theater dinner. From a previous visit, I recalled the relatively quiet atmosphere with widely spaced tables, which I thought would be conducive to a family conversation. I didn’t expect it to be quite this quiet: on a Saturday evening, it was practically dead when we arrived shortly before 6:00. It livened up a bit—but only a bit—by the time we left.

At $37.95, the steaks here are priced slightly below the NYC average. We found two hefty fillet mignons, a Kansas City strip, and a humongous rib steak, all top-notch, along with asparagus ($10.50) and mashed potatoes ($8.95). Two especially thick strips of Canadian bacon ($5) were wonderful. I was also pleased to find a good Côtes du Rhône for $45, which by steakhouse standards is not bad at all.

In short, everything at Staghorn Steakhouse was more impressive than last time. I am not sure which visit was more typical. 

Staghorn Steakhouse (315 W. 36th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Craftsteak

Note: Craftsteak closed at the end of 2009. After modestly remodeling the space, the same team opened Colicchio & Sons in early 2010.

*

Craftsteak had a tough start, with most of the reviews citing the same peculiar flaw: the kitchen didn’t know how to cook a steak. With prices running about $10–20 per steak higher than the going rate in Manhattan, that wasn’t going to fly.

I visited Craftsteak 1.0 twice (here, here). Frankly, I might not have bothered to return after the first time, but I was so sure Tom Colicchio would right the ship that I figured it was worth another look. The second visit was, if anything, even worse than the first. I was still sure that Colicchio would fix it somehow, but I wasn’t going to rush back.

Tom Colicchio got busy. He fired his chef de cuisine, bought new kitchen equipment, and continued to tweak the menu. His efforts finally paid off with a rare re-review from Frank Bruni, elevating the restaurant to the two stars that I’m sure Colicchio intended it to have. More than a year after my last visit, I thought it was time to give Craftsteak another try.

Craftsteak 2.0 is much improved, though not without its flaws. The menu is still far too sprawling, with 20 different steaks and 35 side dishes. Ten of those steaks are variations on the New York Strip — corn-fed, grass-fed, or Wagyu; 10, 12 or 18 ounce; aged anywhere from 28 to 65 days. Who needs so many options?. Colicchio should offer New York Strip the two or three ways he thinks are best, and ditch the others.

 

The amuse-bouche was a bit of a dud: a thin pâté buried too deep in a cast-iron bowl, with just three skimpy crackers to mop it up with. Parker-house rolls were much more successful, and it was all we could do not to eat all six of them.

 

Our favorite steak is the ribeye: naturally, there are two versions: 14-ounce grass-fed ($55) or 18-ounce corn-fed ($52). We chose the latter, as it’s four ounces heavier and three dollars cheaper. And finally, Craftsteak served a steak for the gods: tender, beautifully charred, evenly marbled, full of mineral flavor. There was no need for four steak sauces: they were first-class, but why offer only two spoons?

Rounding it out was a plate of gnocchi ($11), soft, light and creamy enough to make you forget every other gnocchi you’ve ever had.

The dining room was full, but we had no trouble getting walk-in seating at the bar. The tables there are just as big, and it’s the same menu. Servers aren’t quite attentive enough. I would almost be tempted to award three stars for the food, if I did not suspect that a menu as vast as Craftsteak must have some duds, and perhaps we were just lucky enough not to order any of them. But on the strength of this visit, it appears that Craftsteak is finally delivering on its promise.

Craftsteak (85 Tenth Avenue at 15th Street, Far West Chelsea)

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

TBar Steak & Lounge

I found out about TBar Steak & Lounge via an Eater post, which lampooned the place for its dorky décor. I wouldn’t normally go to the Upper East Side for a steakhouse, as there are plenty of great ones in my neck of the woods, but hey, I was feeling adventurous.

The good news is that it’s nowhere near as dorky-looking in real life as it looks in that Citysearch photo. And the restaurant seems to be doing well. When I walked in at around 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday without a reservation, they could seat me only in the lounge. That was just fine: the lounge is spacious and comfortable.

The bad news is that they’re serving USDA Choice at a Prime tariff.

I took one bite of my Ribeye Steak ($42), and I knew immediately it wasn’t headed for the pantheon. The conversation with my server was almost surreal.

“Excuse me. Is this prime or choice?”

She looked at me with a puzzled stare. “In terms of…what?”

“Have you heard of Prime beef, versus Choice beef?”

“Uh, no.”

“Can you ask the kitchen if it’s Prime or Choice?”

By this point, I already knew the answer. At any restaurant serving Prime beef, the servers know it. Her response, a few moments later, was just a formality: “It’s Choice.”

For a Choice steak, it wasn’t bad. But it was $42, which is as much as, or more than, many restaurants charge for aged Prime. Any steak-lover will instantly know the difference.

I also ordered the Potato Cake ($12), a luscious creation made with potatoes and gruyère (upper left in the photo). Servers were young and friendly. And obviously not schooled in the difference between Prime and Choice.

TBar Steak & Lounge (1278 Third Avenue between 73rd & 74th Streets, Upper East Side)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Satisfactory, but the servers aren’t meat scholars
Ambiance: Good
Overall: Overpriced, for what they’re serving

Primehouse New York

It was only a matter of time before Stephen Hanson, that past-master of formula restaurants, opened the ultimate formula restaurant, a steakhouse. David Burke’s Primehouse opened in Chicago last year, and now comes Primehouse New York, sans Burke, but with a very similar steak program.

Primehouse has a more modern vibe than the average steakhouse: a quieter version of BLT Prime. Booths and tables are more generously spaced than at BLT, and there are soft surfaces to absorb the sound. The space feels “dressy” by steakhouse standards. You could bring a date here, and have a conversation without shouting.

There weren’t any tables available when I walked in at around 6:00 p.m. on a weeknight, but the bar area is large and comfortable, with soft, high-backed chairs. Bar dining must have been planned from the beginning, as these are about the plushest bar seats you’ll find anywhere in town. Once you sit down, you’ll want to stay a while.

The menu offers typical steakhouse starters ($8–18), a raw bar (platters from $16–79), seven cuts of steak ($34–49) plus porterhouse for two ($86), eight other meat and fish entrées ($21–42), and side dishes ($9). At $46 for a ribeye and $48 for a New York Sirloin, Primehouse sets the high water mark for NYC steakhouse pricing (though the now-closed V Steakhouse was worse).

Are those stratospheric prices worth it? If the 20-ounce “Kentucky” bone-in ribeye aged 28 days (which my server recommended) was any indication, they just might be. The mineral tang of the dry aging was all you could ask for, and the marbling was as even as on any ribeye I’ve encountered. The kitchen executed without fault, with a deep char on the exterior and a perfect medium rare inside.

I also tried the Smoked Bacon Brussels Sprouts (top right corner in the photo). I liked how the musky taste of burned bacon enhanced the sweetness of the Brussels Sprouts, but the bacon bits themselves were tough and tried out.

The wine list is a large tome, and only high-rollers will be pleased. The reds go on for many pages, but I counted only seven bottles under $60, and only two under $50. None of the California Cabernets were under $60, and none of the French Bordeaux were under $80. If Café Boulud can offer an entire page of red wines under $60, it’s hard to believe that the prices at Primehouse are justified. I was glad to see a page of half-bottles, which one seldom sees at a steakhouse; more restaurants should have them.

Is Primehouse New York for you? It depends on whether you mind spending a few dollars more for a commodity item. But if future visits confirm that the ribeye I enjoyed was no fluke, then Primehouse just might be a top-tier steakhouse.

Update: Since this review, Brian O’Donohoe has replaced Jason Miller as chef. We doubt that this will make a tremendous difference to the average diner, but it is worth noting that O’Donohoe has stints at Le Bernardin, Barça 18, and Fiamma on his resume. Perhaps seafood dishes here will be worth a closer look.

Note: Click here for a review of the burger at Primehouse New York.

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

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