Strange that I would end up at Catch Steak before Catch itself, given that the latter's piscine is much more my to my tastes,
and has been around for years while Steak has been open just four days. And while I am certainly not the most enthusiastic carnivore, I am, in fact, a huge fan
of chef Michael Vignola, whom I have met on multiple occasions at events, and most recently, as the chef at Strip House. But Catch Steak isn't your typical steak house, it's a megalith of a clubsteraunt, flaunting both some serious square footage and the capacity to cater to the Meatpacking District's signature party crowd as well as the fancy, well-heeled guests at the Maritime hotel, in which it is housed, but isn't inextricably beholden.
The menu is a vast as the restaurant itself, which is comprised of compartmentalized dining spaces, as well as private rooms, cabanas, a second floor, a bar area.... what have you. Like the mood it wants to promote, it's dark and clubby, cavernous in its expanse and with lots of little hiding places for possibly nefarious activity. To note, towards the south end there is a Red Room... make of that what you will. The staff looks more suited to be working at 1 Oak than a restaurant with food of this caliber, but they are actually very civil and gracious. The sommelier was wearing a spray-painted on Herve Leger with far too much cleavage, but the girl knows her bottles, so pay attention. Cocktails are well-balanced, clever and novel: there will be ingredients in them you've never heard of but whoever's making them does, so trust them.
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| Crab Cocktail |
Same goes for the kitchen, because simply everything that came out of it was ace. Not so much the novelty of ingredients, actually: this
is a steakhouse, and the menu reads as such. But after you sort through the raw bar options of exquisitely fresh seafood, hot and cold appetizers, and a couple of pastas, you'll land upon the meat section of the menu, where each cut is sourced with such precision that there are very few of duplicate provenance. That said, some of the non-meat options were by far the most excellent (to me, but then again I'm always going to say that). It would be hard, though, for even the most adamant carnivore not to agree with me on this in regards to the Colossal
Crab Cocktail featuring some of the sweetest, densest, and freshest lumps of crab meat nestled into a plush Old Bay espuma studded with thin discs of crunchy carrot. I would go back for this dish alone. And portion sizes are big enough that that wouldn't even be a ridiculous thing to do. There was easily enough to share even though I didn't really wan to. But we did get a tremendous amount of food, so stomach capacity was by far the biggest potential problem of the night. I even wanted to finish the Jumbo Shrimp cocktail, a dish I am always less than thrilled about, but these humongous specimens were, again, of such stellar quality, and the
kicky chili garlic oil served aside would taste fantastic on pretty much everything besides lime sherbet, quite easily the best shrimp I have had in memorable history. Maine lobster tail was sweet and pliant, again, best zipped up with a drizzle of that oil, but pretty tasty too with a daub of creamy dijonnaise. There is a blue fin tartare crowned with a bulbous golden cured egg yolk, and three different crudos from which to choose. These are good with the hand-stretched "Focaccia di Catch", which is more
Carta di musica-crunchy than a traditional bready focaccia, and while it's shot through
with stracchino and a generous slick of olive oil, it is less taxing on the appetite than the doughy type, which is a welcome balance to the satiating fare.
From the Cold section of starters there are a few busy, loaded salads, and a lovely carpaccio of thinly sliced Italian red peppers, roasted down to the consistency of fruit leather and with all the tangy sweetness of it as well. The Hot apps offer BBQ glazed Alaskan King Crab, served in the shell, and was the one thing I felt could've been fresher. The sweet potato churro, however, was
superb- crispy and light on the outside, piped full of whipped sour cream and generously laden with Regiis Ova caviar. I'm not a huge caviar fan but in this combo it was impeccable, salty, juicy lubrication to the richness of the churro- a fairly perfect decadent bite.
Of the two pastas, we tried the truffled agnolotti (the other was a spicy gigli, a ruffly wonder from Florence), described as simply a combination of ricotta and L.O.V.E., and while I'm guessing the latter had something to do with olive oil, those plush little pillows imparted the same sensation as one of the world's best hugs, too.
And then, meat. Four categories, Japanese and American Wagyu, Prime and Dry-Aged separate the offerings, and as I mentioned before, they are all identified by their provenance. So a Prime, bone-in filet comes from Waucama, Indiana, the 28-day dry-aged ribcage from Fort Morgan, Colorado, a soy-glazed Snake River gold label NY Strip from Bruneau, Idaho. And then there are the imported Wagyus, each identified by its respective attributes and prefecture. These are sold by the ounce; these are NOT CHEAP. Nor are the domestic steaks, running from $45 to $72, so there's no way of getting in and out of CraftSteak on the cheap, but you will
leave not only well-fed, but pampered, indulged, and satisfied on pretty much every level. The meat is sublime, a carnivore's dream, and while I would have appreciated some organic and grass-fed options, I know these are not the fatty, marbled cuts prized by true beef afficionados, of which I am admittedly not one. But it's hard not to love those peppery, crusty edges of the meat, dripping with the juices of a rare interior, intensely meaty and primal.
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| Snickers Baked Alaska before...... |
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| ......and after. |
Desserts are just a decadent, bridging nostalgia and technique, so think a soufflé, but of the cookies- and-cream variety, Baked Alaska swaddling a caramelly Snickers goo, and a mess of an apple cobbler crumble, elevated with creme fraiche ice cream and pecan strudel. What with Luger's finally recognized as past its prime, Catch Steak has swooped in valiantly to fill the void.
88 9th Avenue
212.858.8899
evaporates as soon as it hits your tongue. Sweet potato sourdough steamed on arrival: a dark, moist and chewy loaf, buttery even before the butter, which was a gorgeous whip with buttermilk, anointed with a verdant oil. The sweet, plush crumb melted in your mouth, and the the tangy buttermilk-butter melted into that. It was simply dreamy. A crudo of Montauk fluke was bright and fresh with tangy early harvest citrus and an alluring sprinkle of fennel
A last hurrah of summer tomatoes wallowed in milky burrata, with toothsome hunks of sweet, roasted corn sliced fresh off the cob and sturdy crackers of blue corn on hand to cordon it all onto your spoon. The rye crumbs atop a chicory salad were a bit gritty, or sandy, but somehow in the end not in an off-putting way as they coalesced with earthy-sweet
half-moons of Tokyo turnip spiked with a gently anchovy-scented dressing. The geranium component, wherever it was supposed to have been, seemed to have been conspicuously absent from the concoction, unless as an edible herb it was somehow subtly tucked into the dressing.
