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La Tete D’Or (318 Park Avenue South) is the new king of the city’s great American steakhouses.
The French name — taken from a park in owner Daniel Boulud’s hometown of Lyon — shouldn’t scare off beef lovers wary of foreign twists on their favorite protein. Boulud seamlessly marries American and French styles just as he does at Le Pavillon and Cafe Boulud, but La Tete’s emphasis is 90% Stars and Stripes.
My three meals were masterpieces of Yankee Doodle kitchen craft — especially American-ranched steaks that are colorfully grilled and flamed in view of the dining room.
La Tete D’Or joins a cavalcade of new Manhattan steakhouses — by far the city’s favorite kind of large restaurant. The past two years have seen the openings of Hawksmoor, Delmonico’s, Bourbon Steak, Beefbar and Rocco’s. For my money, comfort and creativity, La Tete towers over them all.
The plush setting is exquisitely attuned to the vibe. Landlord SL Green and designer David Rockwell carved a masterpiece of a venue inside the new office tower at East 23rd Street known as One Madison. (Note that the entrance is actually on Park Avenue South, near East 24th Street).
The main dining room is bright enough to avoid the oppressive, masculine air of older steakhouses. It feels bigger than its 120 seats because it is. It’s a spacious and gracious sea of padded walls, velvet banquettes and dark brown and blue trim — all of it suggesting a classic supper club. White tablecloths soften the buzz that nightly fills the place well after 10 p.m., when much of the rest of the neighborhood is turning in.
Even for a chef with multiple Michelin stars like Boulud, there’s no guarantee opening a steakhouse will prove successful. Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s fussy V flopped in less than a year. Tom Colicchio had to make adjustments to Craftsteak after customers balked at its original griddle-roasting approach.
But Boulud has a powerful trio — culinary director Mitch Lienhard, executive chef Andreas Seidel and chef de cuisine Steven Barrantes — in the kitchen to deliver on his vision of “American classics with French tweaks.” It’s fun watching their team carve, flame and plate the beef with Olympian dexterity.
An oak fire lent a distinct forest tinge to the natural mineral essences of filet mignon (8 oz., $76) and 45-day dry-aged ribeye. But my favorite choice was properly marbled, beautifully sliced 34-oz. prime Angus cote de boeuf ($190), so richly flavored I felt I was having the classic cut for the first time. All the steaks arrive in natural jus and are offered with no fewer than eleven sauces and compound butters.
I regrettably didn’t get to the Scharbauer Ranch American wagyu prime rib carved served on a trolley ($115), but judging by its deep red interior, golden brown crust and sauce-drenched surface, it’s No. 1 on my list to have next time.
The menu is strong far beyond the beef, from a celery and tarragon-tinted lobster bisque (almost a meal in itself for $24) to a Caesar salad ($24) made table-side to a scrumptious, yellowfin tuna steak grilled with a peppers, tomato and lemon-herb dressing — the “French tweaks,” you see — for ($46).
Pastry chef Maria Arroyo’s soft-serve sundaes, offered in several flavors and with choice of sauces and toppings, might be the best new dessert I had in all of 2024.
La Tete D’or isn’t without glitches. The floor has yet to catch up to the kitchen. A staff member took long minutes struggling to debone Dover sole that turned out to be delicious — but with bones. Busboys eager to snatch plates with food on them and glasses of unfinished wine should not tell customers, “Take your time.”
But customers aren’t taking their time going there. It’s packed every night, and surely will be when they start lunch a few months from now. Spring can’t come too soon.
