Through an extended shot, probably the most thrilling new steak dwelling in New York at the moment is L. a. Tête d’Or by means of Daniel, the newest eating place from the indefatigable French chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud, who for greater than 3 many years has embodied the soigné sophistication of ultra-high-end eating in New York. Daniel, his namesake established order at the Higher East Aspect, a colonnaded sanctum of caviar and white linen, has remained each gastronomically and culturally related since its opening, in 1993. His dozen-odd different eating places on the town, from the graceful, Mediterranean-inflected Boulud Sud (recently closed for renovations) to the fast-casual Épicerie Boulud cafés, have in commonplace a readability and a classicism, a way of fluid, virtually rapturous perfectionism. Boulud eating places by no means come throughout as stale—a outstanding accomplishment, given each the duration of his profession and the beige-cashmere wealth of his core clientele—despite the fact that in addition they hardly reach a way of trendiness or urgency. L. a. Tête d’Or is also his first foray, in slightly a very long time, that feels buzzy, even scorching.
L. a. Tête d’Or, as a steak dwelling, is inherently and very American, despite the fact that Boulud has dressed where up in rather French tailoring—French onion soup is soupe à l’oignon; the eating place’s identify, which interprets to “the golden head,” is a connection with the most important, most lovely public park in Boulud’s local town of Lyon. Housed at the foyer degree of a Flatiron place of job tower, L. a. Tête is Boulud’s farthest-downtown eating place, despite the fact that there’s little downtown in regards to the eating place itself: it’s huge, formal, and sumptuous, trés Boulud, from the luxurious, hotel-like reception house to the luxurious, burgundy-swathed front room to the luxurious, sweeping eating room adorned in brown marble and blue velvet. The ceilings bounce, the artwork is huge and muted and gently summary, the white linens at the tables glow like cream within the halo of Artwork Deco sconces and dramatically tubular chandeliers.
The steak dwelling (a “eating place idea” if ever there have been one) is constructed from such well-worn tropes—whiskey, iceberg wedges, myoglobin, leather-based—that it’s unattainable for a brand new iteration to keep away from a minimum of winking conspiratorially at the ones defining parts, if now not embracing them wholeheartedly. Boulud and workforce appear, right here, to be specifically occupied with taking part in with the style’s integrated theatricality. A proscenium-size cutout in a single wall finds a dreamy tableau of a steak-house kitchen: butcher block and white tile, counter tops artfully organized with carnelian hunks of meat. It’s most commonly for display: the actual motion of the actual kitchen is hidden in the back of the rear wall of the diorama, despite the fact that motion is visual, every now and then, across the edges of the backdrop, and white-jacketed chefs every now and then step into the display kitchen, plating and completing this or that with the stoic composure of actors taking part in out a silent scene. A horizontal line of mirrors fixed periscopically around the most sensible of the aperture permits diners to gaze on the workstations with none want to go away their very relaxed seats. But even so, a lot of the motion involves you: a number of of the eating place’s dishes are keen or plated tableside, on wheeled carts that servers drift showily across the eating room, allotting Caesar salad and Dover sole in intimate command performances.
Placing on a efficiency is not any sin; I like a eating room that is aware of it’s a level. In any case, we shoppers carry out, too, particularly at a steak dwelling. Is the piece of meat sufficiently big? Marbled sufficient? Uncommon sufficient? The meal is a continuing, frightened audition: for the choicest lower, the toughest sear, the blackest caviar, the frothiest heartburn. You get the truffled baked potato now not out of any want for desserts however to show your indifference to their value; you ask for a rib eye with a good-sized spinalis now not since you’ve were given any concept what that suggests however since you’ve heard somebody say it prior to, and it sounded robust and clever and within the know. You’ll be able to observe your center whilst you’re at a steak dwelling, unquestionably, however each mote of smoke and sew of leather-based within the room is telling you to observe the principles.
At L. a. Tête d’Or, you’ll skip lots of the dishes indexed as starters, which appear to serve most commonly as area fillers, each at the menu and at the desk—despite the fact that I loved a pleasing little scallop crudo with nubs of pomelo and inexperienced herbs, and a singular, New York-ish tackle marrow bones, served cut up lengthwise and crowned with squares of pastrami and dollops of sauerkraut. Way more thrilling issues are going down somewhere else within the lineup: chilled seafood, candy and plump around the board, to be had piece by means of piece or piled up in a tiered plateau; a conventional Lyonnaise frisée salad—poached egg, mustard French dressing—given a lovely improve with chicken-liver croutons. (The dish is a Boulud staple, at the menu at a number of of his eating places, and at all times exciting.) Regardless of the spectacle of its tableside preparation, the Caesar salad is disappointingly bland; move as a substitute for the “French wedge,” a Gallic take at the inevitable and iconic steak-house staple: iceberg lettuce with a Roquefort dressing, fried shallots, and, within the function historically performed by means of bacon, crispy, salty bits of smoked red meat tongue.
All of that, despite the fact that, is solely warmup—possibly foreplay? The beef is the thrust of the object. The eating place provides a dozen or so cuts of red meat, of more than a few breeds and provenances, some outstanding (an olive-fed American Wagyu from Stonefall Farm), others generic (an nameless Black Angus filet mignon, which most likely the filet mignon eater merits). For those who don’t devour crimson meat, you’ll avail your self of a phenomenal Sasso white meat or a firm-fleshed, elegantly filleted Dover-sole meunière, the fish flown in day-to-day from Holland. Consistent with steak-house regulations, ordering a steak will get you a steak, not anything extra: facets are offered one by one (get the baked-potato tartiflette, decadently tacky, the mushy haricots verts amandine, and the marvellous frites), as are sauces and flavored butters.
The steaks are lower cleanly and properly fired: a forty-five-day-aged rib eye had intensity and a mild funk; a Snake River Farms bavette, whilst somewhat petite, used to be deep and flavorful. However the one one to get, in my guide, the celebrity of the menu, the imaginable raison d’être of all of the operation, is the high rib. Because the more than a few table-service trolleys zigzag during the eating room, few diners glance up from their conversations (or their telephones). Now not so when the wagon carting the “primal” of red meat, from which each and every slab is sliced, comes round. Boulud takes his high rib extraordinarily critically: just one primal is cooked at a time, an extended, sluggish procedure that calls for exacting consideration; on one among my visits, a server sorrowfully conveyed the scoop that the newest lower hadn’t been as much as chef’s requirements, and so none could be to be had for no less than two extra hours. As soon as carved and plated, each and every slice is draped on one lead to a yellow veil of béarnaise from a copper pot, and at the different lead to wine-dark bordelaise. The flesh of the beef sunglasses from a carnation-pink medium-rare middle to a deep, herb-scented outer crust. The near-melting fats cap shines like polished quartz. Chew for chew, it’s in reality one of the vital stunning steaks I’ve had the excitement to devour, and it just about earns each foolish, self-serious flourish. Forget about the climate-ravaging results of livestock ranching; forget about the plaque build up for your arteries; forget about the hundred-and-thirty-dollar ticket (which will get you sauces, two facets, and a black-pepper-inflected popover—one thing of a deal, when put next with the nickel-and-dime exorbitance of a meat-and-sides meal à los angeles carte). A well-prepared steak is goddam scrumptious. Why wouldn’t you wish to have to wrap it in ritual and make it an avatar of social energy? Why wouldn’t you wish to have to go back to its uncooked, unadorned, masculine simplicity when you’re feeling just like the well-established hierarchies of the sector are threatened, when the doorways to American lifestyles appear too huge open, when the old fashioned purity of “standard” is moving in discomfiting tactics?
