Peter Luger Steaks Its Claim

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“You’re not being rude enough,” was the first thing I said to our waiter (Tony) as he was cheerfully guiding us through the menu and drink order.

He just smiled and shrugged, “That’s not the way we do things around here,” and then kept on being more solicitous than a billboard lawyer at a fender-bender.

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Which is another way of warning you that when  it comes to atmosphere and service, Peter Luger Las Vegas is as far from the actual Peter Luger (the one located at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge in actual New York), as Caesars Palace is from actual Rome. Except for the food — which hits most of the benchmarks established in the glory years when Luger was widely considered the best steakhouse in the country.

Back then, Luger was famous for several things: cash only (unless you had a PL credit card), rude waiters, and having the best beef in the city. These were the days before any Podunk purveyor of prime could access superior beef from around the globe — a time when New York City got all the best steers, and few in America even knew what dry-aging was.

Trading on that reputation, the family (yes, it’s still family-owned) has finally started to expand, opening first in Tokyo in 2021, and a week ago in our humble burg.

Before we get to the food, back to that rudeness thing. From our experience, it has always been an apocryphal complaint — the sort of gripe jaded New Yorkers hurl at any place where “Do you know who I am?” has no currency.

For those who wish to believe such malarkey, here is a pic of me in Brooklyn, twenty-three years ago, being totally abused by a waiter:

Image(Obviously hates his job)

On both of my visits in the 90s, I went early without a reservation (the second time with three teenagers in tow), and humbly asked if they could squeeze us in. And they did, remarkably quickly, with a smile, in one of the stark, Teutonic rooms — more German beer hall than American steakhouse — at bleached wood tables saturated with a century of beef fat, smoke and history.

Service was cheerfully brusque, the kind you get from sassy diner waitresses when they tell you, “You’re not having that; you’re getting the _____ and he’ll have the ____, and anymore questions?” Causing everyone at the table to win by conceding defeat to those in the know.

The porterhouse steaks we ate then were life-changing: a study in mineral-richness, shot through with tangy, gamey beefiness, singular in their haunting intensity. For perspective, the only steaks  I thought were in the same league at the time were from the original Palm, Gallagher’s, and Keen’s in New York, and Gibson’s in Chicago, but Luger was in a league of its own. Dry-aged beef was a rarity then, today in New York it’s as common as Yellow Cabs.

Then and now, Luger stubbornly avoids anything fancy. The dry-aging still permeates the beef, causing textures to tenderize, and flavors to intensify and “double-back on themselves” (Pete Wells) — the sizzling plate spitting butter and melted tallow so hot you can finish cooking your slice on the sloped sides of the platter if you want it a percentage more done.

Image(Iconic porterhouse)

Is the beef as good today as the steaks I remember?  Tough to say, as I consider those Luger steaks in the 90s as the apotheosis of the porterhouse which has rarely been equaled — even after tucking into hundreds of slabs of dry-aged steer from Soho to Tokyo. But the buttery mouthfeel and nutty, umami undertones I tasted at the fourth Peter Luger will no doubt send some fetishistic foodies into fits of tantric foodgasms, placing this beef at or near the top of any in town.

Some menu items, struck me as better crafted here than there: an incredible crab cake, pristine cold seafood, crispy/creamy German potatoes, along with some non-food improvements: well-spaced tables, better stemware, large circular bar brought front and center into the restaurant (the former Rao’s in Caesars Palace) — all calculated to produce both as sense of masculine comfort and a “wow” factor which the original lacks, all while catering to the demands of a three-hundred seat Vegas steakhouse slinging 2,000 lbs. of steaks a day.

Image(Finally, a place to go for a $139 shot of gin)

Upon taking one of those seats, they give you a fancy cocktail menu, and a wine list full of interesting bottles. The one in Brooklyn has always been infamous for being barely above the “red, white, or pink?” level of choices, unless your tastes run to overpriced Cali cabs. (Regulars — the ones with that coveted private credit card — usually bring their own.)

You will then be given a menu with a large letterbox in the center outlining steak for two, three or four, priced from $148.95 to $285.95. Those steaks are all porterhouses — for the uninitiated, a thick, t-bone containing part of both the sirloin and filet. All are broiled and brought to the table sliced amidst the hiss of fat coming off white-hot plates. They are what you order at Peter Luger in the same way you go to Mott 32 for the Peking duck. Everything else is window dressing.

This is 60-day, dry-aged beef, cured on-premises in a 4,000 square foot meat locker below the restaurant, so it ain’t cheap, but $150 for a “steak for two” will easily feed four, unless you have an NFL tackle among you. If you insist, lamb, chicken, and Dover sole are there for the pikers, and the bar burger (if it’s anything like the original we had in Brooklyn) will be a showstopper.

Image(This crab doesn’t filler round)

The rest of the menu is unapologetically old school. I happen to be a fan of the Luger steak sauce, even though Pete Wells (in a New York Times take-down in 2019) described it as ketchup and horseradish fortified with corn syrup. Unlike his though, our shrimp were not the consistency of “cold latex,” but pristine and perfect.

And the signature tomato and onion salad may be a bit bizarre, but it’s as much a part of the Luger legacy as sizzling fat:

Image(Just like Grandma used to make)

Wells insults the dish by stating it “tastes like 1979” but that’s exactly the point: this was your grandma’s idea of sweet-sour salad in 1966. It is  outdated, un-seasonal and about as voguish as a dickey… and all the more glorious for it.

Desserts are no-nonsense classics: hot fudge sundae, properly-crusted New York cheesecake, chocolate pie – all of them served mit schlag (“with unsweetened whipped cream”) reminding us of this place’s German roots and sending everyone home with a satisfied grin.

The staff is an all-star lineup of local restaurant pros who have put in their time from the biggest operations to the smallest sandwich shops. Jacob “Jake” Leslie is now Director of Food and Beverage at Caesars. We’ve seen him come through the ranks from The Goodwich, to Libertine Social to now running the whole shebang at a gigantic hotel.  Executive Chef Eric L’Huillier has gone from Pinot Brasserie (Joachim Splichal’s once-underrated bistro in the Venetian) to being top toque at Wally’s, to now heading a kitchen with ten broilers expected to feed hundreds of customers an hour.

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Front of the house is anchored by David Oseas (pictured above with L’Huillier – who was previously at Rosa Ristorante in Henderson), along with one of our favorite wine guys: Beverage Director Paul Argier. Argier is responsible for the vastly-improved, multi-national wine list, which isn’t cheap, but still possible to mine for relative bargains — once you understand that $125 is the new $75 when it comes to Strip wine lists.

Walking into PL and seeing them all running the place made it feel like old home week, rather than another soulless Strip branding exercise. It is a huge restaurant but also a welcoming one. How it stacks up against our other top-shelf purveyors of prime probably depends upon your expectations when approaching a restaurant with such a storied history.

Image(Super somm Paul Argier is there to serve)

Peter Luger started in 1887 as a cafe and billiard parlor. It had hit hard times when the Forman family resuscitated it in 1950, turning it into a cathedral of beef (and the template for the modern American steakhouse) in the latter half of the last century.

Back then, the Formans were known for being the toughest customers in town when it came to sourcing prime grade beef. But in the twenty-first century, these kinds of top-shelf, tender, well-marbled cuts — which used to be the  exclusive province of a few select steakhouses — are now sold world-wide. I used to consider it a treat to fly to Chicago or New York to dive into a Brobdingnagian, dry-aged porterhouse. Now there are a dozen steakhouses within 20 minutes of my house where I can indulge my Flinstonean fantasies.

The final question thus becomes: Is the meal worth the tariff?

Lezbee honest here: You don’t go to Peter Luger for innovation or chef’s creations. You are not here for the appetizers, or the side dishes, or seasonal eating; you here for the main event: the meat and the bragging rights to having taken down one of the world’s greatest steaks. One hundred and thirty-five years on, from the point of view of a palate who has eaten them all, this one is still one of the best ones, and more than worth boasting about.

And, as always, it will be served with a smile.

Our meal for two came to $341 (including one cocktail, three glasses of wine, and a comped shellfish tower), and we left a $100 tip.

Image(Mit schlag is German for “more please”)

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Best New Restaurants 2023

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It’s been a banner year for new restaurants, but most of the growth has been confined to the ‘burbs. (Face it: the Strip is now more boring than an Elon Musk boondoggle.)

Whether the engine is a booming economy, pent-up demand or big money finally stepping into the food game (Hello, The Sundry and Lev Group!), the greater Las Vegas area is teeming with worthy newcomers, some done on a shoestring, others well-financed, each seeking a slice of the hunger pie. In years past we might’ve had trouble coming up with half a dozen lip-smacking joints, this year has been a bounty of riches, with more to come in the final four months.

And yes, I know the year is only 66.6% over, but whether it is out of habit (10 years of writing my guidebook, and 25 of doing the Desert Companion/KNPR Restaurant Awards), I seem to be congenitally wired to start writing about the “year’s best” when summertime is on the wane.

So consider this a partial list, which bears updating, but a good start if you’re looking for what is recent and deserving of your dining out dollars:

The Best New Restaurants of 2023 (in no particular order, with commentary):

138 Degrees Craft Chophouse CLOSED

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Image(…and then this lawyer dude asked for ketchup…)

Henderson has a steakhouse to call its own, aging everything from the sirloins to the salmon.

Basilico Ristorante Italiano

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Image(Surf and turf risotto alla Francesco Di Caudo)

It’s hard to get excited about Italian anymore, but I can almost work up a woody over this one.

1228 Main

You will not find me here most mornings only because my waistline won’t allow it.

Image(ELV’s usual at 1228)

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As good as the pastries are, the lunch/dinner options (including the best pasta of the year pictured above) here are every bit as technically perfect as you would expect from a Wolfgang Puck operation.

Azzurra Cucina

Image(Not your father’s Water Street)

If this keeps up, we’re going to have to retire the word Hendertucky and start eating crow….with a proper demi-glace, of course.

Aroma Latin American Cocina

Nueva Latina in Green Valley makes about as much sense as a salsa band at a Mormon social, but here it is, just waiting to be discovered by the mortgage-poor crowd. Full disclosure: we haven’t been, but Eat. Talk. Repeat. co-host Ash the Attorney raves about this place.

Ocean Prime

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Vegas needs another chain steakhouse like I need another ex-wife, but when the payoff is this spectacular, the heart goes where the heart goes.

Kaiseki Yuzu Sushi Bar

ImageJonathon Mau knows his Maguro)

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Strictly for purists; no sushbags allowed.

00 Pie & Pub

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Mike Vakneen is a pizza savant and Chinatown is now his playground.

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The starters — including the roasted Calabrian peppers with anchovies above — are Esther’s Kitchen-worthy.

Mizunara at The Sundry

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Image(Bun-Bun Hiyashi Chuka)

Homie don’t order off no QR code. Home boy (who hasn’t been a boy for 50 years) demands old-fashioned service…and cold ramen noodles like these.

Marche Bacchus – Bradley Ogden edition

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MB has been through so many incarnations we’ve stopped counting. So has Bradley Ogden for that matter. But the menu here hasn’t been this good in a decade, and though things might look the same, you’re basically eating in a whole new restaurant.

Naxos Taverna

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Think of it as a slightly cheaper, local’s Estiatorio Milos, with free parking and without the fish displayed like jewelry… and thank me later. (Efcharistó, Mark Andelbradt)

Taste of Asia

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Chinatown-level Chinese in Summerlin makes about as much sense as haute Latina in Henderson, but the times they are a-changin’. Karrie Hung is out to raise the Asia steaks in a part of town who finds Panda Express too “foreign”. There’s plenty to placate the sweet and sour pork crowd, but the real gems are in the chef’s specials and seafood, plus the best Peking duck deal ($80) this side of New Asian BBQ.

Daeho Kalbijjim

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Years of dining with our Korean komrades has taught us that Korean restaurants are usually known for doing one or two things well, and the rest of the menu is just filler. Daeho does its justifiably famous sweet-spicy beef rib stew, with promiscuous cheese pulls for those infected with Tik Tok brain….like us above, straining to influence the f++k out of this place.

B.S. Taqueria at The Sundry

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The B. S. stands for “Broken Spanish” and it’s the best Mexican food we had this year. Second only to Viva! by Ray Garcia in Resorts World. Same chef, terrific tortillas, serious south of the border stuff.

Lamoon

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Lamoon packs a one-two punch of fiery food and highly-curated wine that will leave you fit to be Thai’d. The decor (in an old Dairy Queen!) is pretty snappy too.

Hola Mexican Cocina + Cantina

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I once made the mistake on KNPR radio of pronouncing “cocina” as co-CHEEN-a instead of saying co-THEEN-a  or co-SEEN-a — which apparently meant I was describing a local restaurant as a prostitute instead of a kitchen. No matter how you pronounce it, the food here tastes great no matter how much Mexican you speak.

Yukon Pizza

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Why a burger and not a pizza pic? Because of all the griddled, frilly smashed cheeseburgers in town, this one meats all expectations…as do all their kick-ass pies.

Yen Viet Kitchen

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Not strictly new this year, but new to us, and best Vietnamese food we have eaten in Las Vegas, ever — and we’ve eaten in all of them, up and down Spring Mountain Road. What this video lacks in dynamism and drama, it makes up for in information. A must-stop on SMR, and the definition of a hidden gem.

Speaking of hidden gems….

Yummy Kitchen

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They don’t get much more tucked away than Yummy Kitchen, tossing its chili crab and other Singaporean-Malaysian delights inside an Asian supermarket, far across a parking lot at Spring Mountain and Decatur. The crabs are still-moving fresh, and the garlic shrimp, roti, Hainanese chicken, and Malay curries will save you plane fare to Disneyland-with-the-death-penalty.

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While we’re at it…..

Worst new restaurants of 2023:

M.Y. Asia (Closed!)

From stunt noodles to chicken so bad it left us yearning for a Panda Express, this tourist trap was D.O.A.

Told. You. So.

Vic’s

Comically < average Italian at the Smith Center, brought to you by folks who’ve never dined at Brezza or Basilico….and wouldn’t understand them if they did.

Bespoke Kitchen

Nothing bespoke except the name.

Cathédrale

By-the-numbers dining for the selfie wall crowd, brought to you by the Tao Group — who haven’t had an original idea since 2005. Soulless decor, jaw-dropping prices, insulting wine list — the symbol of every unimaginative ripoff late-stage Las Vegas has become in one, overdecorated restaurant.

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Did we miss a few on both sides of these equations? Probably, but this list should get you started, and we have three months to keep eating and augment things.

Enjoy the rest of your summer, and cheers!

THE END

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Steer and Loathing in Las Vegas

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Any freak…can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.

There I was, standing at the entrance, of my own free will, and not on drugs. But they would’ve helped.

Had I lost a bet? Gotten waylaid on my way to CUT? What possible confluence of forces could’ve driven me to such an etiolated place when I’m surrounded by properties  brimming with boffo beef?

Was I suffering from sentimentality. In such a malaise that my eternal quest for excellence was enervated?

The answer is more prosaic: I accepted a free-lance assignment to write about Vegas’s most iconic restaurants. And they don’t come much more well-known than THE Steakhouse at Circus Circus.

Thus did I voluntarily enter the one hotel on the Las Vegas Strip which is as appealing as a Wal-mart on payday, bumping elbows with strollers, snot-nosed monsters, and insundry trailer park refugees looking for a good time on the cheap. The one hotel that would cause nary a tear to be shed if it imploded tomorrow.

Counterintuitively, it may be because the Circus Circus is so shitty that this place thrives. For forty years patrons have come, seeking refuge from the surroundings  — a dark enclave from the fear of cacophony and loathing of kiddies cavorting mere feet outside the entrance.

Image(Never give a sucker an even steak)

A little bit of this town goes a very long way. After five days in Vegas you feel like you’ve been here for five years.

If restaurants age in dog years, then THE Steakhouse at Circus Circus is 287 years old. All things considered, like yours truly, it looks pretty good for its age….at least when the lights are low.

When TSACC first opened in 1982 it was quite a sight. There was a meat locker beside the hostess stand when you could salivate over your sirloins. Then and now it was mostly for show, but at least hinted at dry-aging the beef — twenty years before most American steakhouses picked up the chant. Those were heady days to be sure, and tastier times lay ahead, but this was as good as it got in the early 80s and we were thrilled by it.

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.

Back then the possibilities for Vegas seemed endless, but it was still a cow town in more ways than one, and this brawny, plush restaurant hinted at a new era of steakhouse sophistication. The cozy bar, hanging beef, green leather booths, and birdbath-sized martini glasses were a revelation. As was an elevated wood-fueled fire pit where you could watch the steak chefs work their magic over spitting flames and smoke, while the smell of sweet/musky mesquite perfumed the beef and the room.

The dark, clubby, masculine vibe has remained intact and aged well and least when compared to most Eighties’ decors. (When it comes to good taste in design, THE Steakhouse is to Hugo’s Cellar what a filet is to a stale cheeseburger.)

No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

It’s been at least five years since our last visit, and experience has taught us that these joints don’t change, but game we were, so gird our loins we did, paid the freight and took the ride.

Unsteady doesn’t describe the half of it.

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Then and now, entrees came with soup, salad and sides, making them seem a relative bargain when compared to a la carte everything, which is now the template for all but the hoariest of emporiums. Back in the day, a forty buck steak could get to a hundy in a hurry when you factored in a complete meal. Now, the meat alone will set you back that much.

Image(We have a beef with prices that steak the bank)

Nostalgia is one thing, but sentimentality served with gouge is another. Yours truly considers himself practically impervious to price tag trauma these days, but those frozen lobster tails got our attention. As did $42 for four shrimp, and a “seafood sensation” of crab legs, oysters and shrimp that will set you back 183 clams.

While we’re at it, riddle me this: Where in this town would one go to eat an onion soup not tasting of onions? Topped with cheese so cheap it is not fit for a grade school lunchbox? Or a bean soup bereft of beans? (See below.)

Image(Cornstarch Circus)

Answer: A once venerated, long-in-the-tooth, union-staffed casino eatery which has been coasting on reputation for decades. Who else would have the crust to charge $178 for two lobster tails when one can be had, a la carte, for 78?

Answer: The same place confident enough in its clueless reviews) to charge $95 for a unseasoned porterhouse of dubious pedigree, served looking like it was hacked into portions with a butter knife:

Image(Past its prime)

“It’s like someone bought a supermarket steak and threw it on a grill and decided to charge 100 bucks for it.”- the quote of the evening.

Looking around the room one has to ask: Who, exactly, is gullible enough to pay these prices for dated, bland food in such a crummy hotel…for four decades?

We asked ourselves this throughout the meal, but kept eating. As disappointing as the meal was…we would be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end.

We had no choice. We were in too deep. It was either finish the meal or shoot the pasties off the nipples of a ten-foot bull-dyke and win a cotton-candy goat.

Fear And GIF - Fear And Loathing - Discover & Share GIFs | Fear and loathing, Fear, Cool gifs

So we plowed through, guided by a waiter who was professional, fast and friendly, and who even took the time to guide us to better deals on some side dishes and salads (it gets confusing when factoring in what comes with what).

Along the same lines, the wine list is priced for the clientele, not fools like the person typing these words, with lots of bottles well under a Benjamin.

And we found some things to like, like the baked crab cake ($27) that had it all over the gummy, bready one we had had the previous night at Vic & Anthony’s, and two salads (blue cheese wedge, and fresh spinach with (not-so) hot bacon dressing) which were decent enough to justify the $18 price tag. And the lamb chops ($78/two) made up for in taste what they lacked in presentation.

Image(Getting crabby at Circus Circus)

But when the final tally came ($640, including tax, tip and drinks) , we couldn’t defend it. The steak was just too plain and pathetic and so not-in-the-same-league as dozens of better ones on and off the Strip.

So now…years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

The high water mark for 80s Vegas steaks was THE Steakhouse, which is the last time the moniker fit. Today it limps along — a once-proud restaurant stuck in a ground chuck of a hostelry from which there is no escape. Time has passed it by but no one has bothered to tell the chefs or the customers — a shared, convenient lie serving both sides, since neither seems to care. Walking into the ass end of the hotel to get there, it feels as if the whole infrastructure, casino, and customers are just waiting to be plowed under.

Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.

In 1983, we marveled at the operation, even if, or maybe because, it was surrounded by the most peculiar hotel in town. Las Vegas has always been a bizarre place. It will never go out of style because it was never in style. No matter how much it has been corporatized, standardized, and lobotomized, it remains a place of gargantuan, tacky hotels stuffed with people driving themselves to death by throwing hard-earned cash at unreachable dreams and mindless diversions.

THE Steakhouse was always a pleasant diversion. It may never have been in style, but it was always more stylish than the fleabag hotel surrounding it. Such was its strength. But the years rob us of vigor, and in old age, the penumbra of despair cannot be shed. Like all washed-up restaurants, it will continue opening the doors, night after night, overcharging for its goods and hoping nobody notices.

We noticed.