![]() ![]() Steakhouses can adapt to the guises of elegant supper clubs, corporate boardrooms, and sleek dens of vice. The format rolls with the trends and the times. Its straightforward blueprint makes it the ideal foil for constant reinvention - a perfect trait for an archetypical style of American dining. By late in the century, now-institutions like Manhattan treasure Keen's (which opened in 1885) and Peter Luger in Brooklyn (1887) offered slightly more genial surroundings, eventually adding menu items that became permanent sidekicks to porterhouses and mutton chops: shrimp cocktail, fried or baked potatoes, creamed spinach.Īs the steakhouse genus spread across the country and prevailed through the decades, it managed to stay relevant through a state of perpetual metamorphosis. Revelry has been part of the genre ever since it originated in New York in the mid-1800s, at restaurants known as "beefsteaks" where men sat in rowdy halls consuming as much red meat and beer as they could hold. All in on the expense, all in on the calories, all in on the celebration. And among the newcomers are three - including Boeufhaus - that, in their unique balance of nostalgia and modernity and individuality, made me walk out the door thinking I'd just experienced the next triumphant evolutions of the American steakhouse.Īt once innately codified and infinitely adaptable, a posh steakhouse is where we go on those occasions when we proclaim: Fuck it, we're going all in. Steakhouses aren't hard to suss out in this city: Nearly 50 compete for conventioneer dollars in the Downtown area alone, and at least a dozen new ones have opened citywide in the last two years. ![]() I had been in Chicago for nearly a week by the time I ate there, a week spent pounding down red meat and refined carbs at top-tier chophouses night after night. Steakhouses are all haute chameleons, and we never tire of marveling at their adaptive colorings. Chef-owners Brian Ahern and Jamie Finnegan nail the quintessential chophouse meal: beef tartare and chilled seafood to begin, baller steaks and hedonistic sides, comforting excesses for dessert. Like the trappings, the cuisine at Boeufhaus defies steakhouse convention. Lined with russet-colored brick on one side and a bar built of mixed woods on the other, the room at Boeufhaus seats only 34. Instead, the space brought to mind a tiny pub on a European side street. None of the usual intimations of money and power whirling through the air like cigar smoke. No plush, tufted banquettes or sedan-size booths. No white tablecloths or servers in black bowties. The scene around us, though, didn't square with classical notions of cow palace luxury. We had fallen deep into the steakhouse pleasure zone. Between meaty bites, we snatched up fries cooked in beef tallow and shook our heads helplessly at the narcotic richness of a cauliflower gratin. Devouring it fulfilled every desire a diner could have for this cut of beef and this length of aging - tang, funk, tender-tautness, fatty profundity - and my table of three fell into a focused, contented silence. The slices toppled neatly over one another like fallen dominoes, the last beefy brick leaning against the bone from which the meat had been cleaved. But if we are completely mismatched it could be embarrassing for both of us.The ribeye at Boeufhaus in Chicago, dry-aged for 55 days and weighing in at 22 ounces, arrived carved into thick tiles with crimson centers. I’m meeting friends I’m not very close with and I don’t want to straight up ask what they’re wearing. I also really don’t want to overdress tbh. Sorry if this is dumb af, but I didn’t think a chain restaurant would have a dress code until someone told me this morning lmao. I think minty new Jordans or Samoas with subdued colors would look better in my outfit. I also really don’t want to wear dress shoes. But am I going to look like a jackass surrounded by people in business meetings with nice suits? Should I wear a thin cardigan so I’m not sleeveless? ![]() I’m not trying to wear a tshirt or shorts but it’s fuckin 90 degrees out lmao, so I’m thinking a polo with dress pants, which I think is completely fine as far as their dress code. The only upscale restaurants I’ve been to in the last few years were very trendy, and being in LA that means there really is no dress code because of the weather and the fact that some creatives and other young rich people dress like teenagers. I see pictures of people in like jeans and a tshirt, and then reviews that say a group was asked to leave because of their attire. So I know that even the idea that Morton’s is fancy is pretty dated itself, but they do have a dress code and from googling it seems pretty inconsistent. ![]()
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