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Keens Steakhouse

Opening Hours
Today: 5–10:30pm
Sun:
5–9:30pm
Mon:
11:45am–10:30pm
Tues:
11:45am–10:30pm
Wed:
11:45am–10:30pm
Thurs:
11:45am–10:30pm
Fri:
11:45am–10:30pm
Location
72 West 36th Street
Keens Steakhouse 1 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin

I have a long history with Keens, but nothing to compare with the number of years it has been serving its gigantic mutton chop, other varieties of meats, salads, sides and Scotch. The history wafts through the windy rooms and corridors of this superb steakhouse. Started in 1885 as an offshoot of the Lambs Club, a theatrical group, Keens Chophouse served as a gathering place for the elite in what was then home to the Herald Square Theater District. Beginning in the early 1900s, the restaurant offered a Pipe Club that folks could join. Members would finish up their meals and be brought their tobacco and long churchwarden pipes. Over the years, an immense collection has been gathered. The estimate hanging from the ceilings and stored in a back room today is more than 90,000. When visiting with the Manhattan Sideways team, I smiled as they gazed in utter amazement at some of the names that were written below the pipe display in the foyer from Buffalo Bill to Babe Ruth.

Over the years, the steakhouse has changed ownership, but it has managed to maintain its historic awareness throughout. In addition to the pipes, antiquated playbills line the walls advertising bygone shows. Each artifact has an incredible story behind it... if only these walls could talk. One quick anecdote: in 1905, Lillie Langtry came to the all-male establishment but was denied service. She took the restaurant to court...and won. A short time later, she was invited to dine at Keens. We learned this story when we discovered the menu from her honorary dinner hanging on a wall upstairs. The meal included "clear green turtle soup!"

The premises are beautiful: metal lions and bulldogs menace from banisters throughout, while nude classical paintings, tile work, black and white photos and the aforementioned playbills decorate the walls. In the Bull Moose room, a gigantic moose head watches over diners from the wall and logs burn in a fireplace in one of the bar rooms. Once, in a bygone era, the upstairs areas may have served as a temporary living quarters for some of the workers as recounted by James, the manager. But there's more to it than the history: today's mutton chops and steaks are certifiably some of the best in the City. And that is what's most important, especially for those who have been around for much of Keen's return to prominence over the last few decades. "Restaurants go through different seasons in their lifetime," James explained. "We're just happy to be in an exciting, dynamic meeting place again."

I have eaten at Keens a number of times over the past decades and even participated (or shall I say accompanied) a group of friends on a Scotch tour of Manhattan, where we ended at the renowned bar inside Keens. It offers one of the largest Scotch whisky selections in the city. The most memorable time spent, however, was this most recent visit and James's personal tour of his beloved restaurant.

Location
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Keens Steakhouse 1 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 2 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 3 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 4 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 5 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 6 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 7 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 8 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 9 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 10 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 11 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 12 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin
Keens Steakhouse 13 American Steakhouses Garment District Koreatown Midtown West Tenderloin

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Fine & Rare 1 American Murray Hill

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Fine & Rare, shorthand for “fine food and rare spirits” is the latest creation of Tommy Tardie, restaurateur and owner of the Flatiron Room on West 26th Street. In contrast to the more common restaurant theme of the 1920s and 30s, which Tommy considers to have “played out,” Fine & Rare aims to be an aristocratic parlor straight out of the 1950s, modeled after classic Manhattan hideaways such as The Explorers Club. “The challenge was getting it to look like the Flatiron Room - old world, almost like we discovered it,” Tommy told the Manhattan Sideways team.The space has had other lives as a Japanese restaurant and a photocopy center - Tommy said that when he first saw the space, it was raw, with concrete floors that had holes them and wires hanging from the ceiling. In 2016, it became a little slice of vintage Manhattan, complete with a repurposed teller booth from Grand Central Station serving as the hosts’ stand. The wallpaper is finely textured with glass and sand, and the stainless steel ceilings are reclaimed parts from a former distillery. Descending into the restaurant, we walked on 125-year-old floorboards from Connecticut that have the names of the restaurant’s investors carved into it. Two of these investors are Tommy’s young sons, River and Sawyer, who each made a $1 investment in the establishment in order to garner a place on the floor. Hanging above the booths are pieces of taxidermy that Tommy believes “bring in some more old world charm.”The room is large, but because the tables are isolated from one another, each setting is intimate and unique. “Wherever you are in the restaurant, you feel like you’re in your own area.” Each side of the dining room features a fireplace: one has hand carved marble from Italy, and the other is repurposed from the door of a country schoolhouse. The jazz stage provides a theatrical ambience to the space without overpowering it. “We want the performance to enhance, but not be, the experience. There’s always a show going on even if nothing is onstage.” The walls are decked out with the restaurant’s inventory of over 1000 bottles, which Tommy noted are, “part of the architecture.” Some sit atop high shelves and can only be reached by ladders, which members of the staff will climb throughout the night. Others sit in the caged bottle keep, with personalized labels that can be bought. “New York is all about showmanship - people love to put their name on something.” The back elevated room holds up to thirty-five people and is used for tastings and private events. It has a few hidden elements of its own, including a chandelier and leather and steel door from a masonic hall.While speaking with Tommy, the Manhattan Sideways team sampled a few of the restaurant's scrumptious items, including the burrata served with arugula and an assortment of fruits, the short rib burger, the seafood Cobb salad, and the Greek grain bowl with quinoa, mint, and beet humus. While the Flatrion Room focuses largely on whiskey, Fine & Rare features cocktails with tequila, rum, and brandy. This does not mean that they do not still have some amazing whiskey options, such as the breathtaking smoked Old Fashioned that was presented to us to photograph and then sip.Tommy began his professional career as a creative director in advertising on Madison Avenue, but realized after a dozen years that he was craving something more exciting. “The higher I got on the corporate ladder, the less creative it got. It lost that cool factor.” He resolved to go the route of the entrepreneur, initially with a few clubs, and later with the Flatiron Room and eventually Fine & Rare in 2017. “With this one, I decided to make the demographic and design a place I’d like to go, as opposed to previous projects that centered on reaching a specific consumer base." Tommy also remarked on how Fine & Rare is the result of the trial and error from past ventures: “This is as if I got to do it again and I could do it better. I think entrepreneurs are genetically coded to forget how difficult it can be starting out, but a new project is fun. It makes your heart pump and your adrenaline go.”

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Stay Pineapple Hotel 1 Hotels Garment District Hudson Yards Hells Kitchen

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