Yes, this place lives up to all the hype. Do yourself a favor - stay up an until midnight and log on to Resy 30 days out to snag a reservation at one of the 10 tables there. If you try to make a reservation during normal human hours, the only things left are the ones after 11pm and if you're like me, I just can't be dining that late anymore, so I opted for the 5:15pm reservation.
Everything about this place reeks of old school dining. It's located on Charles Street (duh) in a townhouse and has a speak-easy feel as it is pretty tucked away and hard to find. Once you enter, it's like being transported to something of the Godfather era - it's dark, leathery and the waitstaff are all impeccably dressed. As expected the clientele veers towards the douchy banker bros but hey, I can't fault them at all for enjoying a good piece of meat.
This place comes for the same team as perennial meat favorites, Au Cheval in Chicago. The menu here is a bit more expanded with a raw bar, chicken, pasta, side dishes and most importantly prime rib. They also have a fantastic cocktail/wine list with some seriously outstanding old fashion cocktails - they're huge and viciously strong. Vince is my go-to overeater partner and we obviously couldn't help ourselves when we were here. We started with the shrimp cocktail ($21) because the Alaskan crab legs were offensively priced at $75/lb and got the prime rib Chicago cut ($66), cheeseburger with farm egg ($19 for the burger + $2.50 for the egg), mashed potato side ($13) and the creamed spinach side ($13). And yes, it was just the two of us eating dinner. The waiter had told us that there are a french dip special and don't think that we didn't seriously consider throwing that in the mix too but we exercised some mild form of self-control.
The shrimp cocktail came out first with 6 large shrimp served with cocktail sauce and dijonnaise sauce. They were plumb and crisp with the right texture to it. The cocktail sauce was served with horseradish on top of it which made it even more delicious. It was an excellent start to the meal. Everything else came out fast and furious right after. The prime rib was 16 oz of pink rare heaven - it was pre-sliced but you still had to cut them into smaller bite sized pieces and it was so tender that you could have cut through it with a dull butter knife. It was one of the juiciest pieces of meat I've had in a really long time. They only later brought out the au jus sauce to go with it, which only made it even more amazing but the first couple of "naked" bites were just as good. But what's even better than the au jus was the horseradish cream - there's just something about rare meat and horseradish that's so perfect. Just when you think you've had your fill of meat, they roll out the cheeseburger. This is not just any cheeseburger but a double decker with a runny egg - many people opt to get bacon on top of it too but we decided it was just too much. It's a fantastic heart attack inducing burger with pickles, chopped red onion and a mayo like sauce. I'm glad we split it so that we could try a bunch of other dishes here but lots of people were totally just making the burger their main dish, which I can understand. The super runny egg was just the cherry on top. A runny egg makes everything better. On top of everything else the sides were not to be forgotten. The mashed potatoes came with probably 2 tons of butter in it but also it was made with roasted garlic and chicken jus. AMAZING. The creamed spinach was also great but it was more along the lines of a standard creamed spinach but it's one of those dishes that I feel like you have to get with meat.
At this point, you'd think we would be comatose and ready to leave but no. We ordered dessert too because we're fat f*cks. We got the chocolate cream pie ($18) which for even a non-chocolate lover like me was simply fantastic - it was pretty much chocolate pudding in an oreo crust with a huge dollop of creme fraiche on top. My heart was pretty much broken when we couldn't finish it and I had to watch half of it go to waste.
At this point, it was only 7pm but it felt like midnight. We walked out definitely feeling like we had been hit by a mack truck food wise - I was honestly a tad uncomfortable by how much we ate and I had only had a salad earlier in the day.
I've read a few reviews of people gripping about how annoying the reservation system is (I get it, it's annoying) and it is quite pricey (although no more than many other high end restaurants in NYC) but really if you enjoy meat, this is a place you absolutely need to experience. Just do it - you won't regret and even if you do, who the hell cares? Total bill: Unknown since I didn't pay but I'm guessing somewhere in the ballpark of $375 for 2 with tax/tip/drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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