Scathing New York Times Review of Famed Steakhouse Peter Luger

F&F for linking to a paywall news site and not reposting the article

They have the best impossible burgers.

All steakhouses are a racket - overpriced, fatty, high-calorie food for primarily older white men who want to show off.

There won't be a ton of them around for too much longer.

Agree with R1. Here you are:

Peter Luger Used to Sizzle. Now It Sputters. By Pete Wells • Oct. 29, 2019Updated 1:03 p.m. ET I can count on Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn to produce certain sensations at every meal.

There is the insistent smell of broiled dry-aged steak that hits me the minute I open the door and sometimes sooner, while I’m still outside on the South Williamsburg sidewalk, producing a raised pulse, a quickening of the senses and a restlessness familiar to anyone who has seen a tiger that has just heard the approach of the lunch bucket.

There is the hiss of butter and melted tallow as they slide down the hot platter, past the sliced porterhouse or rib steak and their charred bones, to make a pool at one end. The server will spoon some of this sizzling fat over the meat he has just plated, generally with some line like “Here are your vitamins.” There is the thunk of a bowl filled with schlag landing on a bare wood table when dessert is served, and soon after, the softer tap-tap-tap of waxy chocolate coins in gold foil dropped one at a time on top of the check.

And after I’ve paid, there is the unshakable sense that I’ve been scammed.

The last sensation was not part of the Peter Luger experience when I started eating there, in the 1990s. I was acutely aware of the cost back then because I would settle the tab by counting out $20 bills; cash was the only way to pay unless you had a Peter Luger credit card. At the end of the night my wallet would be empty. Because a Peter Luger steak made me feel alive in a way that few other things did, I considered this a fair trade, although I could afford it only once a year or so.

I don’t remember when the doubts began, but they grew over time.

Diners who walk in the door eager to hand over literal piles of money aren’t greeted; they’re processed. A host with a clipboard looks for the name, or writes it down and quotes a waiting time. There is almost always a wait, with or without a reservation, and there is almost always a long line of supplicants against the wall. A kind word or reassuring smile from somebody on staff would help the time pass. The smile never comes. The Department of Motor Vehicles is a block party compared with the line at Peter Luger.

.

The management seems to go out of its way to make things inconvenient. Customers at the bar have to order drinks from the bartender and food from an overworked server on the other side of the bar, and then pay two separate checks and leave two separate tips. And they can’t order lunch after 2:30 p.m., even though the bar and the kitchen remain open.

Since its last, two-star review in the Times, written by Frank Bruni in 2007, the restaurant has started taking online reservations. It accepts debit cards, too, which is nice. But the credit card you use to buy a cortado at the cafe or a bag of chips at the bodega will still not buy you a meal at Peter Luger. The servers, who once were charmingly brusque, now give the strong impression that these endless demands for food and drink are all that’s standing between them and a hard-earned nap. Signals that a customer has a question or request don’t get picked up as quickly; the canned jokes about spinach and schlag don’t flow as freely.

Some things are the same as ever. The shrimp cocktail has always tasted like cold latex dipped in ketchup and horseradish. The steak sauce has always tasted like the same ketchup and horseradish fortified by corn syrup.

Although the fries are reasonably crisp, their insides are mealy and bland in a way that fresh-cut potatoes almost certainly would not be. The sole — yes, I’m the person who ordered the sole at Peter Luger — was strangely similar: The bread crumbs on top were gold and crunchy, but the fish underneath was dry and almost powdery.

Was the Caesar salad always so drippy, the croutons always straight out of a bag, the grated cheese always so white and rubbery? I know there was a time the German fried potatoes were brown and crunchy, because I eagerly ate them each time I went. Now they are mushy, dingy, gray and sometimes cold. I look forward to them the way I look forward to finding a new, irregularly shaped mole.

Lunch one afternoon vividly demonstrated the kitchen’s inconsistency: I ordered a burger, medium-rare, at the bar. So had the two people sitting to my right, it turned out. One of them got what we’d all asked for, a midnight-dark crust giving way to an evenly rosy interior so full of juices it looked like it was ready to cry. The other one got a patty that was almost completely brown inside. I got a weird hybrid, a burger whose interior shaded from nearly perfect on one side to gray and hard on the other.

The same issue afflicted a medium-rare porterhouse I was served one night: The fillet was ideal but the other side of the T-bone, the strip, ranged from medium-rare to medium-well. I could live with this; big cuts of meat don’t always cook evenly. What gnaws at me every time I eat a Luger porterhouse is the realization that it’s just another steak, and far from the best New York has to offer.

Other restaurants, and not just steakhouses, can put a formidable crust on both sides of the cut; Luger caramelizes the top side only, while the underside is barely past raw, as if it had done all its cooking on the hot platter.

Other restaurants, and not just steakhouses, buy beef that is tender, richly marbled and deeply flavorful; at Luger, you get the first two but not the third. Other restaurants, and not just steakhouses, age that beef to make flavor grow and intensify and double back on itself; dry-aging at Luger still results in a tender steak, but it rarely achieves a hypnotic or compelling or even very interesting one.

But those other restaurants are not Peter Luger, as Friedrich Nietzsche might have said.

“When in this essay I declare war upon Wagner,” Nietzsche wrote in “The Case of Wagner,” “the last thing I want to do is start a celebration for any other musicians. Other musicians don’t count compared to Wagner.”

I could say the same thing about other steakhouses — compared to Peter Luger, they don’t count. Luger is not the city’s oldest, but it’s the one in which age, tradition, superb beef, blistering heat, an instinctive avoidance of anything fancy and an immensely attractive self-assurance came together to produce something that felt less like a restaurant than an affirmation of life, or at least life as it is lived in New York City. This sounds ridiculously grand. Years ago I thought it was true, though, and so did other people.

The restaurant will always have its loyalists. They will laugh away the prices, the $16.95 sliced tomatoes that taste like 1979, the $229.80 porterhouse for four. They will say that nobody goes to Luger for the sole, nobody goes to Luger for the wine, nobody goes to Luger for the salad, nobody goes to Luger for the service. The list goes on, and gets harder to swallow, until you start to wonder who really needs to go to Peter Luger, and start to think the answer is nobody

ty r4

Holy shit. When the Times publishes a mean-bad review of a top tier restaurant, it reverberates for months through the whole NYC restaurant industry. Not a good time to work in any of those restaurants Eeeeeek!

What? Another NYC establishment that fails to live up to its much ballyhooed hype, is way overpriced for what is delivered, where the help is trained to be rude and ignorant so it appeals to snobs, and management/owners looks down at its customers as rude, provincial trash.

Just because this shit worked for the drugged out, alkie, lemming-like customers of Studio 54 40 years ago doesn't mean it works anywhere else.

That steak is badly cooked, leaking fluid.

I assumed most steakhouses cooked their steak sous vide until rare, then finished them on the grill to avoid such soggy meat.

I've been there twice. Last time was in 2000. It felt like an over-priced tourist trap even back then. Yup, you felt processed, the same wait, the same two bills, despite reservations made months in advance. The waiters weren't even charmingly rude, more like a bunch of old drunks with shitty lives. The steak was heavenly. The sides were pretty forgettable. All in all not worth the money or the abuse. I hope it goes down the tubes, which really should have happened two decades ago.

I thought their steak was greasy.

OP, please share your version of their creamed spinach recipe.

They don't take credit cards?! Are you fucking kidding me?

Sorry bout the paywall guys, I usually just open another browser if I'm at my limit of free articles. R13, the recipe I use is this, but I do both white pepper and a dash of nutmeg and leave out the parmesan because that is heresy to me.

From the HuffPo above.Here's what you'll need:

2 10 oz packages of baby spinach, washed 3-4 Tbs salted butter 1 onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 3-4 Tbs all purpose flour 2 cups milk 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese (optional) 1/2 tsp white pepper (or nutmeg if you prefer -- it really brings out the flavor of spinach) salt to taste

And here's what you do:

Cook the spinach in a pot of boiling water for just one minute, add to a cold water bath to stop the cooking, and then squeeze out the excess water from the leaves. Chop the spinach (or throw in a food processor) and set aside.

Now's the important part -- making the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the garlic and onion, and cook until just soft. Add in the flour, stirring it together to form a paste. Slowly whisk in the milk and cook until slightly thickened. Enjoy this sight, it's the transformation of raw ingredients into the most wonderful sauce in the world. Stir in the parmesan, add in the spinach, white pepper and salt.

Serve right away -- preferably with an awesome piece of steak.

R4 et al

You do realize typing out or whatever NYT articles in full or part violates copyright protection.

As for article being behind a paywall; rubbish. Just clicked on above link and it worked perfectly fine.

Some of you girls need to update your computer skills, because for most part NYT stopped placing all articles automatically behind paywall some time ago.

Ask one of younger nieces, nephews or a kid at work to show you how.

R17, the NYTs allows only a few articles free per month. If you exceed that number and click on the link above you'll be prevented from seeing the article. Copyright violation, oh please stopping being so prissy dick.

Here is an article about the article, no paywall.

R17......a blast at parties.

I’ve alwYs wanted to go there to get a cheeseburger and a hot fudge sundae. I think I still will try it one day. Is the reviewer the same guy that tore the Guy Fieri time square restaurant to shreds, that was a funny review about his Flavortown restaurant

Live in NYC and thus each day part of one's news reading click upon numerous NYT articles per week, have never run up against a paywall, nor have for a long time.

If that was the case, R21, why would they bother charging a subscription price?

R21 probably has a subscription through a service like Amazon and doesn't realize it. Just clearing cookies doesn't work for bypassing paywalls anymore.

I went there with my bff years ago, and I was incredibly disappointed. The porterhouse tasted like it was fried in a frying pan. I could barely eat it. And our dinner was $150.

The most exciting part was seeing Nicholas Cage on our way out.

I've preferred Le Relais de Venise to Peter Luger's for a while now.

The steak frites, wine and cheeses are delicious. And affordable.

R22

Don't know what to tell you guys. No, have any sort of subscription (paid or otherwise), and yes can read any NYT link one fancies. Everything except various old archive "Way Back" things.

We now continue with our regularly scheduled programming.

I have no subscription but can read without a problem. Sometimes it says my free articles for the month are met. I just switch to another browser. Everything is fine. Fand F is kinda silly, no? And posting the Huffpo recipe is nice and all, but can't people click through?

Not everyone agrees.

16 is correct

What is schlag?

It's sweetened whipped cream to pretentious cunts and perfectly normal Germans.

Germans generally call it Sahne. Austrians generally call it Schlag.

Well, that cleared it up, thanks R32!

Almost as good as his Per Se review. But in this case the greedy owners won't do anything about it. At least Thomas Keller realized something was very wrong.

$16.95 sliced tomatoes is just foolishness.

It, like Sylvia's in Harlem has become a tourist trap

Luger's Special "Holy Cow" Hot Fudge Sundae $12.95

Peter Luger Prices

Lugar's is a shitty tourist trap and has been for years. It caters to the Rudy Giulianis of the world -- overpaid old morons who've forgotten what good food is supposed to taste like.

And Martha Plimpton, apparently, r39!

Her Instagram post is dumb.

Link to the Per Se review someone

Sometimes the legend of the place is enough for people think it's good.

Is this the only restaurant that cuts its steak for you? I always found it funny that it is served in these little cut up pieces. It’s like they’re treating you like a child.

Sylvia's is where people who don't know better go for "soul food".

Ask any of your AA friends to have their mother or grandmother hook you up. That or go to a church dinner, BBQ, or just head towards/down south. You'll find far better soul food than that dreck Sylvia's dishes out.

[quote]The most exciting part was seeing Nicholas Cage on our way out.

I condole you.

Funny, I would have pegged Martha Plimpton as more the vegetarian type, not one to rise to defend the honor of a German steakhouse against the NYT.

R17 (etc.) must have some sort of magic computer, because the claim that NYT articles aren't behind a paywall, and thus subscription-only after the first ten (or is it five now?) per month, is false.

$17.00 for a wedge of iceberg lettuce, the cheapest junk lettuce one can buy, and some salad dressing. Let's see, a full head of iceberg lettuce costs no more than $1.50 TOPS, so their wedge costs them about 35¢ and let's be magnanimous and say the dressing (even if made in house) probably costs them no more than 75¢ per serving. That's some damn profit margin.

That cow stick looks like an old band-aid. Yummy.

Yelp reviews says.....

Am amazed PL still doesn't take credit cards, other than their own. You'd think with all the Mad Men or whoever high power guys who frequent the place they'd at least take AMEX.

Anyone who still thinks steak with butter is a great meal deserves to eat at Peter Luger, where the average age of the diners makes Dataloungers look young.

There are dozens of GREAT steakhouses in NYC. Why anyone still goes to Luger is beyond me.

The NYT paywell annoyed me at first. But there was NO way i was subscribing to that biased MSM piece of shit. I just stopped clicking on NYT pieces.

The paywall is not at 3 or maybe 5 articles per month. I never see it because i never read that many NYT articles any more. There are way better sources for news.

Doesn't Martha Plimpton fly with Easyjet? I thought she was too poor to eat in high-end restaurants.

[quote]Anyone who still thinks steak with butter is a great meal deserves to eat at Peter Luger, where the average age of the diners makes Dataloungers look young.

Yeah, but the diners frequently get mistaken for 35.

Am a Smith & Wollensky person myself, but there are other choices.

List the better sources, R52. I'm not being sarcastic; I'm genuinely interested.

Tad's has become a more popular choice amongst NYC natives.

The place in R57 looks like a Ponderosa.

R55, Smith and Wollensky tried to break into the very competitive Dallas premium steakhouse market several years ago. They built a massive green and white building but failed miserably only a few months after opening. The building is still standing vacant.

The also closed their Houston location in 2018.

How does it compare to Ruth's Chris?

The place in [R57] looks like a Ponderosa.

They love it in Chicago, Philly, and SF also. But the NYC natives flock to it every day.

If you have a Los Angeles Public Library card, you can access the NYT site for free.

You can also access the LAT but not in website format but as a series of articles listed daily. I don't bother with the LAT even though it's my hometown.

I had the best steak I've ever had was in a restaurant called Texas Land and Cattle in Austin. I went there after an interview for a job I didn't get. The UT college students who waited on me couldn't have been nicer, and when they saw that I was dining alone, they took turns sitting with me while I ate. I asked to see the manager, and I could see the kids were shaking in their shoes. But I told him I had never seen such hospitality in a restaurant, and I let him know, as a stranger in town, how much I appreciated it. I left a huge tip.

Take that, Peter Luger!

The last Tad's in NYC is closing, there will be one Tad's left in the USA in San Francisco. I use to eat at Tad's on 14th St way back in the early 80's, when I was young and poor.

[quote]Funny, I would have pegged Martha Plimpton as more the vegetarian type

No. A waiter once tried to warn her that her dinner would end in tears but she told him to jump into a grease fire and upped the ante by demanding the crabs be delivered to the table alive, and the rest is history!

[quote]During his date with then-girlfriend and co-star Martha Plimpton at the age of 15, he began crying once he witnessed her eating soft-shell crab. "He left the restaurant and walked around on Park Avenue, crying," Plimpton said in 1995. "I went out and he said, 'I love you so much, why?...' He had such pain that I was eating an animal, that he hadn't impressed on me what was right."

Shteakhoushe.

Nice to be a vegetarian

I've had a good steak and service at the local Outback. When my husband and i went to NY for a business trip (he was meeting with a client at the NYT), we went to Peter Luger. It was....not as good as Outback. This was in 2017.

The Palm on 50th St. is terrific.

[quote]The servers, who once were charmingly brusque, now give the strong impression that these endless demands for food and drink are all that’s standing between them and a hard-earned nap.

*chuckling*

Kyle MacLachlan was a table or two away, which was a big deal to one of the people in our party of four. The dinner was actually for her birthday so it was a nice surprise for her.

R19

I have been bitterly disappointed with most every high dollar restaurant I've ever eaten in. They never seem to come anywhere near their hype for me. The biggest disappointment in my lifetime was Charlie Trotter's in Chicago, but unfortunately my boss loved the place. I never once had a meal I enjoyed there and I still think the gods and godesses that my visits were always on the company tab.

Now I'm long retired, my old boss is long dead, and Charlie Trotter's is long closed. I'll never have to suffer another visit there again.

R72, Charlie Trotter is also long dead.

[quote] F&F for linking to a paywall news site and not reposting the article

FF for being too retarded to bypass the paywall in the year 2019.

WW to the OP for not reposting the entire article and clogging up the first few posts.

R73, yes I forgot that he had died as well. Stroke. All that pressure from overcharging his customers for servings that wouldn't feed a parakeet. Not to mention screwing his servers out of their justly deserved tips (which he ended up having to pay big bucks for after he was sued), and all the other lawsuits that were filed against him. Oh, and his 3 wives as well. 3 wives is enough to kill most men.

[quote]Luger's Special "Holy Cow" Hot Fudge Sundae $12.95

If you are in NY and you want a treat you go to Serendipity 3 for their famous Frozen Hot Chocolate.

That $12.95 hot fudge sundae at R37 is nothing more than a normal run-of-the-mill hot fudge sundae, only in a glass that looks more awkward to eat it out of than a dish. The guy spooning it into his mouth in the last few seconds of the video looks tantalizingly cute, though.

Sylvia's is restaurant quality soul food produced from home recipes that have been adjusted to cook in mass quantities to feed the crowds. And unfortunately home recipes almost always suffer when adjusted for large scale production.

As far as the food served in high end eateries is concerned, there's a very good reason chefs who work in those restaurants usually eat things like a burger and fries when they get home. They don't eat the food they cook at work in their off hours. They know it's just dolled up, overpriced crap meant for people with way too much discretionary income who are easily fooled.

Smith & Wollensky is fine for NYC steak, but they aren't remotely in same league as even a middle tier place in Texas.

Texans take their meat/steak very seriously, almost always have; so you had better bring serious game if you're a Yankee outfit coming from up north seeking to break into that territory.

The Strip House is pretty good, and they have the most amazing (and massive) chocolate cake for dessert.

Peter Luger has been defrauding the IRS for years. They only accept cash,

Frauds of a feather...

[quote]So, my big shot, Cadillac, phone-in-convertible boring date couldn’t pay for dinner. He was stunned and embarrassed. I said, "Let’s get aprons and do the dishes. It would be fun." His face was horror-stricken. He was flustered. Relax, I have the money. Oh, thank God. He swore he’d pay me back tomorrow so many times that I thought it not likely.

[quote]He never did. That may tell you something about my date with Donald Trump.

What about the Old Homestead?

You could always try the Hot Fudge Monster at Ree Drummond's new ice cream parlor next time you're in Pawhuska.

R78 where the fuck do you get your information about chefs eating burgers and fries after work....do you just make shit up?

Really, r78, we know ours never does . . .

Never been to Peter Luger. But Ruth's Crist in NYC was one of the worst, overpriced meals that I've ever had. Tom Collichio's Craft in NY, on the other hand, had the best steak that I've ever eaten. Not to mention their awesome pork belly and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms appetizers. Believe me - I'm not a snob or a foodie but that meal was tremendous.

[quote] [R78] where the fuck do you get your information about chefs eating burgers and fries after work....do you just make shit up?

From watching and reading many interviews with various chefs over the years, that's where. As recently as a few weeks ago I saw Jacques Pepin commenting on how he and his wife eat at home. When its just them they eat very simple dishes (yes hamburgers and fries). Chefs are no different than most people. They don't want to bring their work home with them either.

And just because you don't believe something does not mean someone has "made shit up".

How is Sparks these days? When I was on a corporate expense account would eat there occasionally in the 90s and it was quite good. Then they expanded it and it was not nearly as good but still enjoyable. Smith and Wollensky during that time period was pretty mediocre and would not go back.

Just looked at Yelp and Sparks is 3 and 1/2 stars. Ouch.

Peter Luger sucks? Well, duh!

I like Capital Grill. Of course some of the are better than others but it’s the most consistent.

[quote]where the fuck do you get your information about chefs eating burgers and fries after work....do you just make shit up?

[quote]From watching and reading many interviews with various chefs over the years, that's where.

R88 is right. Do you have the Food Channel or ever watch a chef on home shopping? What, you think chefs eat foie gras everyday? That attack was unwarranted.

R85 should kill xhirself.

I'm not going to offer an opinion until I hear what Ina Garten has to say.

I say...

Bobby Flay shows how to make the best burger...

Okay, what happened that burgers got as tall as skyscrapers?? How are you supposed to eat this thing, you damned millennials?

r83 I went to Old Homestead last year. They sure know how to do a cold martini right. The food was excellent - up to the steak, which had a nice sear and tasted good but was gristly. Servers were fun, old school NYC, the way you want to think Peter Luger's servers are. I'd definitely go back.

R98, you would go back for gristly steak?

R89.”Sparks was to die for!”

R88 anecdotal evidence is not evidence. You read 'an interview'.

I worked in the industry for years and while there were occasional fry cooks who lived on the burger diet in my experience the chefs at better than that....and you know what? .....My experience is not proof of anything and your article means fuck all. Clearly you do make shit up.

Bobby Fly is a shit cook. His burger sounds dreadful.

Bobby Flay is a raging asshole. I’ve met him.

You don't say.

It isn't Peter Luger, but West Village is getting a new steak spot.

Wonder if it will be embraced by the Power Gay set.

i recently had a bobby flay burger in las vegas and it was the greatest hamburger i've ever eaten. actually it was a double cheeseburger no bun with jalepeno ketchup.... the construction of the burger kept it warm while eating. it was so delicious i wanted to go back and have it for breakfast. i will definitely be searching it out or having it again in vegas

In the new gay epic play THE INHERITANCE, Matthew Lopez sets a scene in Peter Luger (Part 1). It's depicted as a place where gluttonous straight male assholes go.

So ... one of Trump's favorite places then?

[quote]So ... one of Trump's favorite places then?

That's already well-known.

His refined palate likes a Peter Luger steak, well done, with ketchup.

I've never been to Peter Luger. What is the experience supposed to be like? Rude waiters?

[quote]It's depicted as a place where gluttonous straight male assholes go.

Where do gluttonous gay assholes go if they want a good steak?

I like STK in the West Village. It’s a chain, but I enjoy it.

There's always BBQ on 23rd and 8th in Chelsea!

Bonus if one happens to be into BBC and or darker Latino/Hispanic guys as there are usually a few "family" (even if on down low) if understand correctly.

"Where do gluttonous gay assholes go if they want a good steak?"

New Yorkers love Tad's

R113

Not no more they don't; Tad's has closed.

Gallaghers in the theater district has great steaks. So does Strip House, by NYU.

Raoul's in Soho has a terrific steak frites, and they're open late.

I've heard/read many good things about Keens and M. Wells but haven't been.

Tad' s is still open, serving the appetites of countless fawning New Yorkers.

Bern's Steakhouse in Tampa had the best steak I ever ate. I was there back many years ago when Bern was still alive. Everything was excellent.

Meat is murder

Meat is delicious.

Meat is delicious murder

R 121 = Denis Leary.

I love Le Cellier in Epcot though there are those who think it's overrated. Last time I was there it was just as good. And those pretzel sticks are heaven.

Anyone remember Manero's in Greenwich, CT? It closed in 2006, but was around for decades before that. When my family lived in NYC we would often take a ride up to Greenwich just to go there. We eventually moved to Westchester and went more frequently. It was noisy and crowded and even as a little kid I knew the ambience was dated but the steaks were so good.

Manero, famous for his tube steak.

Town & Country claims no one ever goes to Peter Luger for the food, anyway!

And he somehow tries to connect it with professional wrestling.