Wolfgang's Steakhouse (Park Avenue)
Wolfgang Zwiener ran Peter Luger's floor before he opened his own room. The beef is USDA Prime Black Angus. It dry-ages in the building and the house butcher cuts it to order. Zwiener hand-selects the sides of beef.
Why go
The house counts twenty one steakhouses worldwide under Zwiener's name, four of them in this city. Bryan Kim says the Park Avenue original feels the most special of the four, for the low vaulted ceilings and the crowd that walks in after work.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the porterhouse, sliced, which is the dish the whole room is built around.
- Order: the creamed spinach.
- Avoid: booking under this name without naming the door.
What locals & experts say
- Bryan Kim, The Infatuation, in the city steakhouse guide:
Schlag, German potatoes, a sliced porterhouse served sizzling on a tilted plate. Sounds like Peter Luger, right? Well it isn't. It's Wolfgang's. This chain was founded by a longtime Luger employee, and, while it lacks the 19th-century ambience, the steaks are just as good... Order a porterhouse, of course, and get the fatty creamed spinach that has no discernible trace of cream.
1 - The house on its own founder: Zwiener took
the core principles from his years as Peter Luger's head waiter
into the kitchen he built.2
Good to know
- Getting in: book ahead.
- I haven't found a street number for this door. Check the address before you travel.
Verdict
could-visit — A weeknight suits this better than an occasion. The comfort is real and the history on the wall was earned somewhere else.