Peter Luger Steak House
The porterhouse is broiled on one side. It finishes cooking on the plate, so the servers wear belt buzzers and run. Two critics ate that steak and disagreed in public about whether it is worth your money.
Why go
Pete Wells rated it Satisfactory in the Times in October 2019. That is zero stars on that scale. Frank Bruni had given it two, twelve years earlier. Know his charges before you spend. The beef is tender and richly marbled and not deeply flavorful. Only the top of the cut gets a crust. The underside does its cooking on the hot platter. Three burgers ordered medium-rare at the same bar came out at three temperatures. The German fried potatoes had gone gray.
Willa Moore, in The Infatuation, went back in June 2024 and rated it 8.6. She agrees with him about the sauce and the burger. She reports the belt buzzers that tell the floor a steak is up. A server gave her the deadline: twenty seconds from the pass to the table, or he may as well go home.
The MICHELIN inspector's current write-up describes a room that has not moved. The inspector lists dry-aged porterhouse, brisk good-humored servers, bratwurst and the wedge to start, and cheesecake and schlag to finish.
Keens has cooked in Midtown since 1885, and the Taste of Mutton is what it is famous for. Cote in the Flatiron grills steakhouse-grade beef at your table, Korean barbecue style.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the porterhouse, sized for one fewer than your party, and the iceberg wedge, which comes under a slab of thick-cut bacon. Add the German fried potatoes and the creamed spinach, which is the best meatless thing on the table.
- Avoid: the Luger-Burger, which is lunch-only. Skip the shrimp cocktail and the house steak sauce, which Wells has found tasting of ketchup and horseradish since the 1990s.
What locals & experts say
- Pete Wells, The New York Times, 29 October 2019, rating it Satisfactory:
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.
1 - Willa Moore, The Infatuation, 28 June 2024, at 8.6:
if you come to Peter Luger expecting anything other than big, perfectly pink steaks, impeccable creamed spinach, and wedge salads with a bacon-to-lettuce ratio of one-to-one, you're doing it wrong.
2 - The MICHELIN inspector, on the current room:
Bring cash, come hungry and enjoy a slice of living history.
3
Good to know
- Paying: cash and debit. Wells noted the card policy loosening in 2019 and the guide still tells you to bring cash.
- Doors: 178 Broadway in Williamsburg. Great Neck and Las Vegas are separate rooms.
- Since 1887: The Infatuation's steakhouse guide dates this Williamsburg room to that year.
- Jeff put this on the list himself, 3 September 2026.
Jeff's take (his words)
Not on Jeff's saved list. He named the place on 3 September 2026, in the paragraph he wrote on what New York is to him, and asked for it.
Verdict
should-visit — Take a table. Wells found bar customers ordering drinks from the bartender and food from a server on the other side of it, then paying two checks and tipping twice.