Quality Meats

Profile

This midtown restaurant is part of Alan Stillman's monolithic Smith & Wollensky empire—it's the brainchild of his son, Michael, and is being touted in beef-eater circles as a radical reinterpretation of stodgy old formulas. Visually, at least, this could be true. The space, as conceived by the trendy downtown design group AvroKO, is a kind of fever dream of quaintly realized butcher-block references. A white-plaster cow's head is affixed to the entrance wall, and the bar is lined with decorative jars of bourbon mash. The walls and ceilings are covered with planks of polished brown walnut, and as you sit down to your meal, one of the first things you notice is that portions of the room are lit with industrial-style chandeliers fashioned from giant steel meat hooks. Order roast chicken at this particular steakhouse, and it comes smothered in sweetened kumquats. Order the very nice steak tartare, and it arrives in a dainty bowl with an equally dainty wooden spoon on which the tartare spices (you mix them in yourself) are arrayed like a little rainbow. There's plenty of steak to be had at Quality Meats once you've waded through all this ephemera, although it doesn't come cheap. If you want to enjoy the full flavor of this great fresser's specialty, order the 64-ounce double cut, a huge, Rabelaisian haunch of beef, carved tableside in thick dinosaur slices for two. — Adam Platt

Bar stays open one hour past the kitchen.

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New York Magazine Reviews

• Adam Platt's Full Review (6/5/06)
• Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite's Full Review (4/17/06)

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