All were served at the right temperature, as was the excellent butter. The Caesar ($15) had its charms (crunchy anchovy croutons, lots of grated Parm), as did the warm milk bread and butter. So dense with flavor were the garnishes for the marrow - port wine onions and oxtail jam on toast - they could constitute a meal all their own. (The salad is there to make you forget you’re eating the inside of an animal)įrom there it was on to a smallish, blandish steak tartare ($20) - the only “meh” of the meal - and three Flintstonean shanks of marrow ($30) that would easily serve a table of four. So much for the Strip being “too expensive.”)

(By way of price comparison, at Carversteak, thirteen miles east, the shellfish extravaganza is $165 here it clocks in at $175. We passed on the seafood tower, instead settling for some very good oysters ($26) served with a compelling yuzu-soy mignonette that made us forget about the excellent cocktail sauce beside it. Prices here have been set without apology and with the confidence (arrogance?) of someone who knows his audience won’t blink at $30 apps and $80 steaks. Once you’re seated, you can expect the standard cuts and sides, here priced at or above similar fare on the Strip - and when we say, “at or above” we’re not kidding. Finding itself will not be a problem for Harlo finding a seat on weekends will be. But Andiron had these same advantages and struggled to find its footing (even pre-Covid). It doesn’t hurt that it is the only decent steakhouse for ten-miles, and that Las Vegas’s toniest neighborhoods are all within a fifteen-minute drive. Put it all together and you have the kind of out-of-the-gate hit of which most restaurateurs can only dream. There is big real estate money behind this project real pros in the kitchen and the house is managed by long-time Strip front-man Ivo Angelov (whose loyal following probably accounts for a half of the customers). The bar also shifted….in more ways than one. The front door is now where the backdoor used to be, and what was once open, bright and airy (trying to mimic something swanky and Southhampton) is now dark, cozy and clubby. Harlo burst on the scene barely six months ago and immediately flipped the script on Andiron, its predecessor steakhouse in the space. With all this in mind, we thought we’d take a look at four major players (two newbies and two old souls) to give you a sense of what you’re up against these days. None of this predictability deters anyone from flocking to these restaurants - which, this being America, may be the point. These days, everyone features the same 9-10 steak cuts from similar purveyors, letter-box “wagyu” beef that is now about as special as tuna fish, and the same old-same old sauces and sides. They all get the same groceries, so all that’s left is how well they tweak them.

The point is, the formula for all of these joints is as predictable as a rom-com plot. But there’s something about the beefy vibe that encourages the copious ingestion of booze - from vodka martinis to trophy wines - and when people want to drink, the Vegas steakhouse is here for them. “Where is all this pent-up passion for prime (not to mention cash) coming from?” he thinks to himself as he sees the bodies pressed four-deep at the hostess stand…on Tuesday nights!Ĭhefs will tell you profit margins on steaks are very low. Quite frankly, the crowds of free-spending carnivores cramming these places has flummoxed even an old restaurant pro like yours truly. Even with the price of beef being through the roof, people are spending faster than drunken sailors on shore leave.

Hunks o’ prime steer muscle and a formulaic menu are the surest way to fill your dining room, and packed they are…from Summerlin to Las Vegas Boulevard South. So, it’s no wonder our post-Covid restaurant recovery is being led by steakhouses. If the baseline for a successful Strip eatery is $1,000,000/month in sales, it’s a fair bet that most major meat emporiums exceed that by at least 50%. Beef, it’s what’s for dinner, and as a class, Vegas steakhouses outperform other restaurants by whopping margins. What began in the beer halls and speakeasies of New York City over a hundred years ago (e.g., Palm, Keen’s, Peter Luger, et al) has morphed into the most expensive of restaurant genres, where checks north of $150/pp are now as common as overpriced California cabernets. It’s hard not to have a soft spot for the American steakhouse. – EATING LAS VEGAS – The 52 Essential Restaurants Every restaurant in Las Vegas would be a steakhouse if it could be.

Snappy salads menu with prices