NYCReview
Peter Luger Steak House
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It’s almost impossible to get an honest review of Peter Luger. People in New York are loyal to steakhouses the way they’re loyal to the Yankees or the Mets. Once you’ve decided which team to root for, it doesn’t matter whether they’re having a winning season or a losing one: You’ll say it’s the best, and nothing can change your mind.
Even if you’ve never been, you go into Luger with certain expectations. This restaurant has been in operation since 1887, and there’s over a century’s worth of lore and mythos attached to a meal here. You probably know, for example, that the service is brusque to the point of being almost outright rude. You know that the porterhouse is the thing to get, that the bacon is extra-thick, that there’s a big ice cream sundae at the end, along with a mountain of schlag and what is essentially hanukkah gelt repackaged as marketing materials.
It’s easy to convince yourself that you love Peter Luger before you even get to the restaurant. It’s steak and bacon and ice cream. What’s not to love?
A lot, it turns out.
The porterhouse, supposedly the entire reason to come to this restaurant, is unevenly cooked and so lacking in flavor that you’ll find yourself making liberal use of the salt shaker. The creamed spinach seems to consist of boiled, unseasoned spinach run through a food processor, no cream in sight. Even the hot fudge sundae, which should be an easy win, is downright deplorable: There’s hardly any ice cream, for one, and the schlag is so over-whipped that there are detectable butter solids. And the hot fudge sauce? It's cold.
At the end of our most recent meal here, we knew one thing for sure: This is no longer a restaurant worthy of an 8.9. After a good night’s sleep and some critical distance, a fellow staff writer sent me a Slack message: “It almost feels like Peter Luger is a good friend from college who I used to do everything with but haven't seen in 10 years, and now we have nothing to talk about.”
It’s easy to make excuses for old friends. You have fond memories of the good times, and you want to believe that the good times will come again. But sometimes, they just don’t. You find that you’ve outgrown one another, or that your old pal Peter maybe wasn’t such a great pal after all. So you move on to more mature friends and better, more flavorful porterhouses. This city has no shortage of either.
Food Rundown
Wedge Salad
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Thick Bacon
Sliced Tomatoes & Onions with Luger’s Own Sauce
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Porterhouse Steak
Creamed Spinach
German Fried Potatoes
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Lamb Chops
photo credit: Emily Schindler