The Steakhouse

The American steakhouse is above all a New York institution, and Arthur Schwartz places it within the city's long habit of chophouse and tavern dining, where beef, a plain room and a loyal clientele of businessmen and politicians made a restaurant. Its anchor is Manhattan, where the form was set and from which it was carried to Chicago, Kansas City and the cities of the West.

The steakhouse is defined by restraint. The menu is short and fixed: beef of the best grade the house can buy, cut thick and cooked hot, with a few sides, a shrimp or oyster beginning and a sweet ending. It is a New York dining tradition of long standing rather than a fashion, and the discipline of the form is the reason it has lasted. The cooks work within narrow limits, and the whole of their skill lies in buying, ageing and cooking. The beef is the substance of the house. The cuts are the porterhouse, the strip, the rib steak and the tenderloin, all from the domestic cow, Bos taurus, and the large porterhouse, which joins strip and tenderloin on one bone, is often brought to the table for two. Beef is aged to concentrate flavour and soften the muscle, and the quality of that ageing and of the butcher's selection decides the house's standing more than any other act in the kitchen. The cooking is simple and severe. The steak is seasoned with salt and pepper and set under or over a fierce heat, commonly a broiler at well above 260°C (500°F), so that the surface forms a dark crust while the interior reaches the degree the guest has asked for. It is finished with butter and sent out on a hot plate. The cook's judgement of doneness by touch and eye, not a recipe, is what the form demands. The accompaniments follow a settled pattern. Potatoes appear fried, baked or in cream, spinach is creamed, and onions are fried or served in rings. A wedge of lettuce or a plate of sliced tomato and onion stands as the salad, and the shrimp cocktail or oysters on the half shell open the meal. The sides are large, shared and made without ornament, so that they support the beef and do not compete with it. The room is part of the dish. Dark wood, white cloths, heavy cutlery and waiters of long service give the steakhouse the character of a club, and the service is brisk, informed and unhurried by turns. The table is a place for business, celebration and the settled ritual of a good dinner, and the sameness of room, menu and manner is what the regular guest comes back for.

The taste of the steakhouse is that of well-aged beef: deep, savoury and slightly mineral, with the bitter edge of a hard-seared crust against the richness of butter and rendered fat. Salt and pepper alone season it, and the sides of cream, potato and fried onion answer the beef with softness and sweetness. A cold shrimp cocktail or a plate of oysters before it, and a dense cake or cheesecake after, give the meal its balance of cold and hot, sharp and rich.