From New York:
What's Your Beef?
Peter Luger Vet Claims Stake at Wolfgang's Steakhouse
by John Mariani

Arched ceilings tiled by the great Guastavino

There seems no let-up in the number of steakhouses New York can absorb: In just the past few months we've seen the arrival of Laurent Tourondel's BLT Steak and Jean-Georges Vongerichten's V Steakhouse, both adding a French twist to the tradition-bound genre.

Now comes Wolfgang's Steakhouse, set in a beautiful space with arched ceilings tiled by the great Rafael Guastavino, who also did the Grand Central Oyster Bar and the Great Hall at Ellis Island, as well as the vaulted ceilings under the 59th Street Bridge that is now home to a restaurant named after him (Guastavino's). The restaurant architecture is stunning, found nowhere else in America, and it does evoke the feeling of a dining room where large men of another time came to spread their wealth and girth around as they gobbled up platters of oysters, giant lobsters and huge rib eyes, all of which you can still do here.

Owner Wolfgang Zwiener has built a quick reputation here on the strength of his service as a waiter and headwaiter for 41 years at the venerable Peter Luger in Brooklyn, a restaurant whose own reputation is decidedly not built on décor, nor on service (which is brusque), nor on the wine list, nor anything else on its menu except for a nonpareil Porterhouse, sliced for the table and served on a hot platter tilted to bring the juices to the edge. This and only this porterhouse, hand-selected by the family that has run the place for decades and considered even by competitors as some of the finest beef in a very tight beef market, makes Peter Luger worth a trek to one of the less tidy sections of Williamsburg. I have always been perfectly content to feast on sirloins and rib eyes at established New York steakhouses like Ben Benson's, Palm, Smith & Wollensky, Patroon and Strip House, with little desire to haul myself out to Peter Luger, although I have to admit that the porterhouse is a real winner. There's only one Luger's (actually, two: there's another in Long Island).

Leaning on the Luger name has therefore become a promotional gimmick that several restaurants have tried over the past decade, whereby former waiters from steakhouses claim to approximate Peter Luger in style and substance.

Wolfgang's is a far more congenial place than Luger for all the right reasons of décor and service, though the greeting by the maître d' up front may be somewhat less than refined. Zwiener himself is always around, however, to see how things are going throughout the night at every table and he's a gregarious fellow. The place is blastingly noisy after 6 p.m. and there's a big raucous bar crowd of guys who seem either headed for a Knicks game or on their way to a strip club.

The wine list is solid if pricey, the table settings fine and the prices about what you'll pay at many other steakhouses in town—$35.50 for most meats, market-priced lobsters and seafood at $28.95. The sliced porterhouse (said to be dry-aged) ranges from $73.90 for two to $147.80 for four.

Zwiener is not trying anything new here, so you get the regulation steakhouse menu, starting with jumbo shrimp cocktail, a nice meaty crab cake and mozzarella with beefsteak tomatoes. The only innovation is to offer a juicy slab of Canadian bacon (priced by the slice), which was pretty darn tasty. The lobsters weigh in at three pounds and the ribeye is as well-fatted and succulent as you could wish. The cottage fries are crispy and mashed potatoes have heft. As for the sliced porterhouse, it's very good—not as good as Luger's in its intense beefiness but certainly very good.

Is there anything new or noteworthy about Wolfgang's? Perhaps not but it is a fine addition to an already overcrowded steakhouse field. Go, you'll have a good time, but it's going to be loud and it's not going to be leisurely. Not the place to ask a woman to marry you, maybe, but a good place to take a client after you've nailed down the deal

John Mariani is well known for his frank and poignant writing in Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink and co-author, with his wife, of the Italian-American Cookbook.