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Lately many restaurants that offer steaks grew up in Manhattan. Nevertheless, if you want to have one in a specialized restaurant you have to search for it a little. After a successful search I was sitting in Gallagher's and waiter came to our table with a freshly made steak, that was the best in New York according to his and many others' opinions.
I took a fork, checked texture of the meat. Then I took a knife and cut the piece of meat and nodded approvingly. The waiter expected this gesture. He smiled and left our table. Softness, juiciness and good smell convinced me that my search was worth it. I heard legends about “New York Strip”. Then we heard another loud sizzle and smelled nice smell of freshly roasted beef. I chew fantastically baked steak, took a sip of cabernet from Heitz Cellar and didn’t resist to further examine meat on my plate. I pressed on a well roasted edge of the steak with a fork and pink juice run out on my plate. I smelled it carefully. I didn’t evaluate it anymore, just enjoyed. I couldn’t say whether was that steak the best in the city, but it was great. I understood why steak-eager people visit that place.
During my survey I found out that there are around 20 000 restaurants in New York out of which around half is in Manhattan. They make steaks in many of these but where to go for the one named after this huge city? Opinions of laymen as well as experts differ. Peter Luger steakhouse established in 1887 or Keen's established in 1885? They say that the first one is for tourists. And also that the best in the second one are pipes on the ceiling (by the way there is the biggest collection of Dutch clay pipes in the world).

Many steak-lovers, including famous politicians, sportsmen and actors, whose photographs decorate walls of Gallagher's go for a unique steaks there. Out of the list of celebrities that visited this restaurant I can mention a regular visitor, a baseball legend, pitcher for NY Yankees, Waite Hoyt, or 42nd American president Bill Clinton who arranged his election campaign there.
Why steaks in Gallagher's are so unique? Uniqueness is based on three factors.
Meat used for steaks is of premium quality, it is called “USDA Prime”. Less than 2% of annual beef production in USA reaches this high quality. It is based on various factors, such as age of animal or amount of fat. Amount of fat is evaluated on a cut of meat, where white fat creates a characteristic mosaic. The more fat it contains, the softer, the juicier and the tastier the steak will be.
The second factor is how long and in which way matures meat before preparation. In Gallagher's they dry it. That is a natural way of how to soften meat and highlight its taste. The procedure is quite easy but time consuming. Slow drying eliminates moisture from meat and that improves concentrations of its taste. At Gallagher's they dry it for 21 days in a special room used only for this purpose. There is constant temperature of 2°C. The manager showed me this “holy place” on my request. It is definitely a pride of this restaurant. The key to this glass room is well looked after. No wonder, what they have locked in the drying room is a real treasure worth thousands of dollars. I looked carefully at big pieces of beef meat in various states of drying. I couldn’t resist a thought that it used to be a cattle grazing somewhere on middle-west prairies in the USA. The manager distracted my thoughts and explained: “This natural way of maturing guarantees softness, fineness and delicacy of meet. It is hand-selected before it ends up in this big fridge. We serve our customers only beef that meets strict criteria regarding texture, colour, and fat-content”.
Further I was interested what the third factor was. It was the preparation itself. Gallagher’s is the only steakhouse in New York where they grill steaks on nut briquettes. Combination of the

selection of meat, natural maturing and grilling on nut briquettes guarantees uniqueness of steaks at Gallagher´s.

After my visit of glass fridge of size of a living room I summarized my feelings. Apart from not the friendliest waiting staff I felt good about that restaurant. The big apple (this slang name of NYC popularized in 1920's John J. Fitz Gerald in New York Morning Telegraph) never sleeps and this refers to competition in gastronomy twice. Therefore I hope that the quality of steaks will remain the same and waiting staff will get better.

My rating:

The author does not visit rated restaurants at the invitation, but chooses them himself. Impressions and evaluation are based on single one visit. All expenses are covered by the author.

Text and photos: Dodi Fodor