Troiani
1001 Third Avenue, 624-4060
Lunch Mon-Fri 11:30 am-2:30 pm;
dinner Mon-Thurs 5-10 pm, Fri-Sat 5-11 pm, Sun 5-9 pm.
I had to have the $85 steak.
I’d been planning to eat at Troiani, chef Walter Pisano’s (ex-Tulio) new restaurant, for a while–and when-ever I looked at the menu, I couldn’t keep my eyes off that pricey item.
But it was a steak for two. My husband begged off–his delicate gut just isn’t made for steak. I thought I could call on two of my most strapping friends, one a former Olympic field star, one a gym buff who regularly polishes off two entrées in a sitting, but both were booked. So I had to bring out the big gun, my lean, lithe friend Eliza, an Atkins devotee, whose enthusiasm for meat is unbridled (at a recent holiday party she was given a miniature house entirely constructed of bacon, salami, and ground beef).
Together we were ready to discover exactly what you get for 85 beefy dollars. In fairness, I should note that Troiani’s lavish steak price is in line with other chop palaces around town: Canlis asks $44 for a New York strip steak (for one), while the Metropolitan Grill charges $44.95. What’s more, Troiani throws in tableside carving for free.
There was once a time when waiters could do things like fillet a fish at the table, but I think as Americans started eating out more often, we needed less of a show to be convinced it was worth the money. The line of demarcation went up between the kitchen and the front of the house, and away went the tableside caesars and the flaming crêpes suzettes. Nostalgically, Troiani has decided to revive the rolling kitchen. (Budget note: You can also witness the creation of your charred escarole salad for $9, a fraction of the steak’s price.)
As a cousin of El Gaucho, Troiani’s décor is expectedly clubby. It is dark and lush in a very familiar (Dahlia Lounge) way, with wood paneling and big booths as scarlet as rare beef and Barolo wine. Perhaps to make Eliza and me feel skinny, the hostess seated us at a yawning six-person booth.
We ordered spiedini of mozzarella ($8), olive-oily toasts kabobed together with fat slices of fresh mozzarella, then doused with herbed olive oil and white anchovies. Tasty as it was, it was overslicked, and, I have to admit, I was distracted by the imminent steak.
Soon a table rolled in with the steak and its attendants: a bowl of mashed potatoes, a panful of sautéed shiitake, our server, plus a man in a suit–a specially appointed waiter. With carving fork and knife in hand, he paused for a moment above the meatloaf-shaped steak, then recalibrated and sliced it decisively into six pieces. He dished the meat, the potatoes, the mushrooms, and the sauce onto our two plates, and then as a final flourish, held a rosemary sprig high above the meat, and used the long blade to shave it over our plates.
Perhaps we should have clapped–instead we studied the meat. It was squared off (a New York strip, apparently, trimmed ruthlessly into right angles–where does that trim go, I wondered…), and stuffed, in the center, with fontina and salami. When it came time for eating, the meat was seasoned right, and perfectly cooked, with a crusty brown exterior and a crimson-pink center. But as we chewed, Eliza commented, “I am all for salami and cheese, but it kind of distracts from the steak.” I had to agree.
We eat steak, despite its price, despite its saturated fat, despite mad cow, because no other food can deliver that deep caveman chew. I’m inclined to believe the theory that the reduced meat stock that serves as sauce on many steaks is in fact a warm, viscous blood stand-in. The presence of cheese and cured meat, rustic in any other context, is just too cultivated a flavor for a steak. As much as I like having my meat cut for me, the next time I need a jawful of beef I’ll be inclined to order Troiani’s other steak, plain old NY strip ($35, single serving), unstuffed and accompanied with a few sharp leaves of arugula.