Event: Dinner at Peter Luger
Addr: 178 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11211-6131
Phone: (718) 387-7400
Type of cuisine: American Steakhouse
Time/Date: Saturday Febr 23rd 2014, 18:00
URL: http://www.peterluger.com
Michelin star: 1
You know you are at the top of your game when you make your competitors nervous, the faith of PL: some of the so-called food journalists are just waiting for an occasion to put it down ( and we all know how easy it is for some of the so-called food journalists to do that as some of them are essentially just “hipsters wannabes” and PL being a classic restaurant, you can imagine the rest …), since PL does not “pay them to play”. Then there are the clueless peeps who never went there but who are paid to bash PL as just a destination for tourists, only to reveal their crooked agenda as any serious North American steak connoisseur (I am talking about a serious one, not one of the numerous online so-called connoisseurs who are basically just promoters in disguise of their friends of the industry who are paying them to play) do know that the tourists flocking there are actually well travelled and knowledgeable foodies who are true connoisseurs of steaks and who do actually have the means to really taste PL’s steaks and accurately assess it. Seems that all that garbage is not enough to mute the hordes of fans of PL: the place is always packed to the brim … with people who truly know what a great steak is and can afford backing their claims! PL’s Porter House is a benchmark North American steak. Any serious connoisseur of North American steaks knows that. I do, too. And the popularity of PL does testify (who, in his right mind, will swallow the “garbage” that PL is good only for tourists, unless, of course, if it is to serve an agenda) to that.
***Sorry, no pics – Just wanted to eat quietly with no hassle / distraction of photo nor note taking. After all, it’s a steakhouse, so the 1000th picture of their steaks or 3000th picture of their side of spinach won’t make those items look nor taste any better ;p
NY is not far from Montreal, so I recently spent a weekend in NY to see if Peter Luger is still doing great especially after reports from some food journalists about PL losing a bit of its past glory (my 4th visit here in 6 yrs).
Picked:
-The Porterhouse steak: The succulent beef flavor that shone through is a reminder that Peter Luger has mastered, for so long, the art of delivering the perfect North American porterhouse steak: this is one of the few great American steakhouses which dry aging technique of the meat is rarely paralleled. But there’s much more, of course: the right grade and the right cooking degree for the right cut. It’s a breeze to appreciate that they are genuinely obsessive about where that beef grew up, how well did it live, what was it fed with, how great and knowledgeable was the butcher behind that cut, how properly aged and hanged was the cut, etc. One of the few benchmark aged USDA prime Porterhouse (some complain about the sauce that’s underneath the steak…well, this adds to the character of that Porterhouse. If you can’t take it, simply ask them to serve it aside). 9/10
-Their legendary creamed spinach: deliciously rich as usual, though hardly something that anyone behind a kitchen should miss. Still, they do it well, it tastes good and it’s a perfect logical match to that Porterhouse steak 7/10
-Their old fashioned sauce: not too sure how that fares with their patrons, but their old fashioned sauce is not to my taste (I do not find that it pairs well with meat). Of course, a question of personal preference (anyways, the only time I am fine with sauce over my steak is when I eat it French-style as with steak au poivre) , especially since the sauce that’s underneath that Porterhouse largely suffices for me. I won’t score that sauce since this boils down to a matter of personal taste only (I am just not used to pair my steak with the flavor profile of this kind of sauce – a mix of sweet and savoury flavors which, for my palate, had following dominating aromas: horseradish/ tamarind/vinegar/molasse. There are, of course, more ingredients to the recipe, but those were the ones that my palate has primarily detected). I did replicate that sauce at home and after several tries, it now tastes almost like theirs, so that my palate gets used to it. Yep, that is how food works lol: you do not like it, do not ive up on it, just accompany your palate in gradually appreciating it and there will be more power to you ;p
-The fabled side of beacon, which I finally got to try this time (kept skipping that one on the past 2 visits): Decent thick slabs of porky meatyness, but beacon abound in North America, its preparation varying widely in quality and depth of deliciousness from one place to another, so it is hard for me to get excited over their beacon. Certainly not bad, but there are definitely better beacon to be enjoyed across North America 6/10
-The dessert list here features typical classic American steakhouse dessert items (Ice cream, pecan pie, cheese cake, etc). This time, I tried their Cheese cake (7/10) which was as classically well executed as it gets (as expected, New York style cheesecake that was and as I wrote, in its classic version), the schlag that I also tried being just Ok.
PL is what it is, not what you want it to be, which is exactly how things should work: it has its charms (the classic setting), its relative weaknesses (obviously, not a modern trendy fancy steakhouse so if that’s what you are looking for, you’ve knocked at the wrong door + it’s not cheap) , its own character (old world charm). You learn to know what they are, if that pleases you, you go, if that does not fit, then you look elsewhere. I am delighted to observe that PL remains as it is, which means at it has always been, regardless of the pressure that new trends put on our perceptions/appreciations: a classic house with personality.
I have read online arguments about PL being a tourist trap to some (100% pure BS! IMHO) , that they have suffered at some point from a shortage of Porterhouse, that they once had a matriarch who was second to none when it comes to selecting the finest meat and that perhaps her successors are not as diligent as she used to, but I have also spent 15 years in North America, enough time to familiarize myself with most major NYC’s and USA’s steakhouses and came to the conclusion that if PL is a tourist trap, then the definition of tourist trap has evolved into a compliment. There’s no way a serious steak connoisseur would confuse PL with a tourist trap. Has PL delivered the perfect Porterhouse steak on each of my 4 visits (I took the Porterhouse everytime I went there)? The answer is NO.
On one particular visit, I could easily name plenty of American steakhouses which Porterhouse was superior. But it’s naïve to attempt to convince oneself about the definitive appreciation to have of a restaurant based on just one meal. You can judge the meal, which I do too and that is fine, but not a restaurant. Which leads me to where I am getting at: on the two other visits, their Porterhouse outshone their major competitors by leaps with effective superior aging technique and far better sourcing of the meat. Are there steakhouses in NYC where I had more fun? Of course Yes. Are there better cost performance steakhouses? Absolutely. But again, ambience and better value have nothing to do with why I like Peter Luger: the quality of its Porterhouse! I was impressed to see that PL continues to deliver some of this globe’s finest American Porterhouse steaks. The Porterhouse steak, their star item, remaining as glorious as ever. UPDATE Oct 2022: PL lost its michelin star, but this review will continue to appear on the left side of the current blog among the listed michelin stared meals that I did review because PL had their michelin star when I reviewed that meal.
Portehouse steak (9/10), Appetizers (6/10), Sides (6/10 ), Service (7/10 )
Recommended: This great article on America’s current finest steakhouses
An anonymous Montrealer's Michelin Star dinners 