BLT Steak

[Bond Girl]

As a semi vegetarian, I would normally not have given much thought to an American Steak house, even though this one is supposedly disguised in a cozy French bistro décor and the press release promised some pretty interesting interpretations of American Classics. But, while at dinner last night, my dinner companion lamented: ‘Poor Laurent Tourondel, reduced to BLT Steak.’ Wait, this piqued my curiosity. Is this the same Laurent Tourondel that was at the excellent but ill-fated Cello?!!! I went home and checked out the press release. Yep, one and the same. Well, it’s a long way from Cello, but BLT Steak is not your average steakhouse either. Even though the menu contain American steakhouse classics such as Surf and Turf and a 40oz. Porterhouse, there are twists such as grilled foie gras BLT (doubled smoked bacon with grilled foie gras on popovers with gruyere) and tuna tartar with soy-lime dressing. There’s also a wide selection of fish to keep the non-steak eaters happy. Desserts include apple cobblers with green apple sorbet, carrot cake with ginger ice cream, orange raspberry sundae, and steamed banana bread pudding with rum raisin ice cream. So, is Laurent Tourondel really “reduced” to BLT ?(which stands for Bistro Laurent Tourondel) Not in my opinion. The chef merely expanded his repetoire and took on another interesting challenge.

Bistro Laurent Tourondel

106 east 57th street

Tel: 212-752-7470

source: press release from Bullfrog and Baum

[SobaAddict70]

Take, for example, a perfectly grilled strip steak, buttery beneath its crust, with a wicked peppercorn sauce. Take, as another, a simple veal chop so delicate and sweet in its flavor that it makes a fine argument for declaring veal the next chic protein — the branzino of 2004, say.

Chef Laurent Tourondel, formerly of Cello on the Upper East Side, presents a style of cuisine firmly ensconced in the New York steakhouse tradition but also rooted in simplicity.

BLT Steak (Sam Sifton) (from this weekend's DIGEST update. You may have to scroll down for the appropriate link.)

Soba

[alacarte]

and here I thought this thread would be about steak cooked BLT style, a la Chicken-Fried Steak.

[Bond Girl]

and here I thought this thread would be about steak cooked BLT style, a la Chicken-Fried Steak.

I often wonder what is the public perception of BLT. Cello was a place that denoted luxury and exclusivity, while BLT couldn't be more casual. Is there a stigma attached when a chef went from fine dining to casual? And, has Laurent Tourondel did himself a dis-service by calling the place BLT?

[alacarte]

Maybe it's a matter of re-educating the public?

[alanamoana]

i think it was in the post (but i could be wrong) but there are also plans in the works for a "BLT-Fish" in the old AZ space...(BLT-Steak is in the old Pazo space) both owned by the same person.

i think it is a little bit of a play on words implying casualness, but blt-steak isn't really as casual as smith & wollensky or some of the other old school steakhouses in my opinion.

and believe me, laurent is definitely a stickler for quality.

[robert40]

http://www.bltsteak.com/

Link to website above.

BLT is short for- Bistro Laurent Tourondel.

[docsconz]

I think I know where I want to take my in-laws next month when we go to see Cirque du Soleil. It looks basic enough for them and intriguing enough for me. I want to try their sauteed porcini and the veal chop.

[Pan]

Well, that was certainly a rave by Sifton!

[Bux]

And a notice that the place isn't as inexpensive as it may first appear after you add in the sides. It does seem to aim at being the style for the 21st century where casual elegance is replacing formal elgance. People seem to want to relax and are not only willing to dine well in relaxed clothing and style, but prefer to do it that way.

[scamhi]

I was not impressed with BLT steak.

Our Rib Steak for 2 was loaded with fat and came with 2 tablespoons of seasoned butter on it.

It was also served with a marrow bone that was just for show. I tried to eat it and it was ice cold about 1" down.

The sides are a joke at 7.oo each.

I thought they were shareable but the size of them are tiny. ie, stuffed tomatoes 2 halves of a medium plum tomato and potato gratin contained 6 slices of potato.

Dinner for 4 with 1 bottle of 70.00 wine and one entree comped $325.00 no bargain.

[docsconz]

Food for thought.

[SobaAddict70]

While veal chop and rack of lamb often seem like tame choices, here they are stunning. The veal is roasted with a moist crust made of bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and a wallop of rosemary. With each sweet bite of veal, there is a flash of the potent crust. The lamb is spread with a layer of ground parsley, garlic, chives and pine nuts.

BLT Steak (Amanda Hesser) (from the New York Times DIGEST update for 14 April 2004. Scroll down for the appropriate link.)

Soba

[Jinmyo]

Two stars from Mandy Hesser.

Does this match your perception? It makes sense to me from anything else I've read about BLT.

[clothier]

and here I thought this thread would be about steak cooked BLT style, a la Chicken-Fried Steak.

me too.

sounds like a good idea, too.

[MichaelB]

I enjoyed the review more than some of the other recent reviews.

Anyone else laugh at the rather forced mention of the pastry chef, Johnny Leon? Any bets on whether she meant to say:

"OK, you guys, I apologize for the oversight in the Spice Market review."

or

"F-you. I have been reading and I thought at least some of you were my friends."

[docsconz]

This post will be updated later today when the regular DIGEST is posted. --Soba

--------------

While veal chop and rack of lamb often seem like tame choices, here they are stunning. The veal is roasted with a moist crust made of bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and a wallop of rosemary. With each sweet bite of veal, there is a flash of the potent crust. The lamb is spread with a layer of ground parsley, garlic, chives and pine nuts.

BLT Steak (Amanda Hesser)

Food for even more thought Enticing review.

[tan319]

Nice review, nice mention for the pastry chef (yay!)

[alanamoana]

well, they were aiming for two stars from the get-go. they got excited by the three star review of spice market...thinking, hey maybe we have a chance at three stars! she gave them two stars which isn't bad at all and probably what they deserve.

laurent is in control of the desserts. they are all "his" recipes and everything that goes on the menu goes through him first. but, he is the first person to give credit to the pastry chef when it comes to press, etc.

so, if amanda hesser called to fact check, then laurent would certainly give credit to johnny who worked for him before at cello.

[herbacidal]

To me, BLT sounds like the perfect choice for Egulleteers (and other selective diners) to take folks on business dinners.

Which may be what LT was aiming for, smart business move in the crowded NYC steakhouse arena.

[schaem]

Our Rib Steak for 2 was loaded with fat

Imagine that!

[Bux]

Frenchman's saucy with steak - Daily News review of April 8,2004 by Pascale Le Draoulec

[Fat Guy]

About half way through my meal last night, after wrestling with my perceptions for an hour or so, it occurred to me that BLT Steak simply is not a steakhouse. BLT Steak is actually an a la carte restaurant along the lines of Craft, where you can build a meal out of superb products minimally altered and expertly prepared. Once I sorted that out, I was able to enjoy my meal thoroughly. Because everything I tried (and I tried a ton of stuff) was amazingly good . . . except for the steak which was, as Amanda Hesser correctly observed in her review, just good.

And I see now in Bond Girl's topic subtitle that she's all over the Craft angle. Great minds think alike!

More later.

[Fat Guy]

So, to answer the question nobody asked today: in terms of the assessments of the food that have appeared in print thus far, I find myself in almost complete agreement with the Hesser and Le Draoulec reviews. Their impressions of specific items are pretty much in line with my own, and the overall assessment of Laurent Tourondel's cuisine is on the money: the guy is exceptionally talented. The place is a big winner.

We began with an immense seafood platter, a three-tiered Brobdingnagian affair laden with oysters, clams, shrimp, crab claws, lobster, scallops, mussels, and periwinkles. I think this thing retails for $95, or maybe ours was the $95-plus version (we were blessedly not paying). Notably, every single thing on it was first rate, which is rarely the case with such platters, and the three accompanying sauces were a cut or three above the norm. Actually, we didn't begin with that, because there's quite a lot of amuse-type stuff that comes out before you eat any of the food you actually ordered -- this is all well documented in the reviews so I'll spare you a repeat.

Other winners among the starters: tuna tartare with soy-lime dressing, the foie gras BLT, and the crabcake. Not much to say about any of these other than that they were of superb quality, and that the Tourondel touches (the soy-lime dressing, the addition of foie to a BLT, and the celery mayonnaise under the crabcake) provided unfussy counterpoint in the best tradition of the chef's dishes at Cello. These three items together would make a terrific meal, come to think of it.

All the proteins were cooked exactly on the mark -- a basic hurdle that 99% of restaurants, and especially steakhouses, are pathetically unable to leap -- and some were at the absolute top quality level I've experienced. The veal chop, well, if you don't think this veal chop is ridiculously good then you either don't like veal or you're fucking nuts. The black cod -- it was a special but seems to be sort of a permanent one, and if I recall correctly it tastes just like the dish as it was served at Cello -- is, again, just as good as can be, though the portion is rather small.

An aside here on the portion sizes: they are all small by the standards of steakhouses. The New York Strip, for example, is priced at $36 and weighs in at 12 ounces. Obviously, 12 ounces of boneless, 100% edible, USDA Prime dry-aged steak is more than any human really needs to eat. But served alone on a plate (as the meat and fish items at BLT Steak are) it looks small compared to what you'd get at almost any New York steakhouse. I haven't done a highly detailed comparison, but a random flip-through of various notes I have lying around here indicates that it's more typical to see a 16 ounce steak at a low-$30s price tag. The black cod portion, well, I'd be extremely surprised to hear it's more than 6 ounces. And I'm not one to grouse about portion sizes, but if you go the route of the steakhouse you get into a situation where you bring the portion size issue into focus because you're very much selling food in the style of a commodity: weights and measures are often explicitly stated on the menu, as they are at BLT Steak.

At a typical fine-dining restaurant, portion size is less of a concern because what you're paying for is much more the artistry of the chef than the actual commodities. At Cello, for example, very few experienced diners would have thought to complain about portion sizes, because the uniqueness of the cuisine de-commoditized it. Whereas I predict that at BLT steak there will be a whole heck of a lot of complaints regarding the sizes of some of the protein portions and almost all the side dishes, especially since BLT Steak has not offered a Craft-like selling proposition. At Craft, the excuse for high prices and small portions is the quality of product and purity of preparation. It seems to me this is the pitch BLT Steak needs to start making, especially since it's actually true.

Anyway, to get back to the proteins, the salmon was also beautifully cooked and a very nice piece of fish. And the steak was good, but just not on par with what the better steakhouses are offering -- and it's statements like "not on par with what the better steakhouses are offering," which I was making in my internal dialog at the restaurant, that got me into the realization that calling BLT Steak a steakhouse is a misnomer. It's not a steakhouse in any way. It's not "a steakhouse in an Hermès scarf." (Le Draoulec) It's not "A Steakhouse With a Soft Touch." (Hesser) It's not "the Modern American Steakhouse." (BLT Web site) Laurent Tourondel may have wanted to open a steakhouse, and he may have started down that path, but it became clear to me that his training and artistry ultimately sent him in a different direction. (To me, he's a four-star chef, as I always felt Cello was carrying the wrong rating at three stars.) And then of course it was a very small jump to the realization that it's much closer in spirit to Craft than to any steakhouse. It lacks the full-on family-style approach and minimalism of Craft, but it's in that category. And in that category, it kicks some ass.

Whereas it may very well be a marketing problem to push this place as a steakhouse, because what happens when a customer enters BLT Steak with steakhouse expectations? And what happens when media come along and want to do steakhouse roundups? They're just not going to rate this place very highly, because they're just going to come in and try the steak and say it's run-of-the-mill by the standards of the better steakhouses, which are the only ones that really count as far as media are concerned. In other words, if you're a steakhouse and everything on your menu is better than your steak, you have put yourself in an oddly confining box.

And it would suck to be stuck in that box, because if I didn't make it clear already I want to say it as loudly as possible: the food at this place is great. Not to mention it's attractive, the servers are pros, the bar staff has talent, the wine choices are solid . . . in other words it's a terrific restaurant that has been miscategorized. Even with a great steak on the menu, it wouldn't make sense to think of this place as a steakhouse. Luckily, though, the restaurant seems to have attracted a clientele that has figured most of this out. So what do I know? Still, with BLT Fish on the way, a Craft-like sales pitch makes even more sense. Indeed, given the heavy fish content of the BLT Steak menu and the inevitability of offering steaks and chops at BLT Fish, why aren't these places just BLT Uptown and BLT Downtown, or whatever?

The Lilliputian (can you use Lilliputian and Brobdingnagian in the same post?) side dishes were perhaps the most enjoyable thing about the meal, which is saying a lot given that there were already so many highlights and I was completely stuffed before the entree course arrived: again it's a demonstration of what a talented chef can do to some tired old dishes like creamed spinach. The carrots are buttery on account of, well, on account of a lot of butter -- and that's good as far as I'm concerned. My favorite side was peas-with-bacon. Oh, no, maybe it was the hen-of-the-woods mushrooms. Or maybe the parmesan gnocchi . . .

Hesser is right on about the chocolate tart: best in New York. Best I've had at least.

[Pan]

Thanks, Steven. And after that rave, do you agree with the 2-star rating in the Times?