October 21-27, 2004

food

Prime Time

by A.D. Amorosi

Food Pick

For his stake in the all-American steakhouse race, Stephen Starr has turned the southeast corner of the Barclay into a boutique steakhouse, Barclay Prime. Dedicated to the decadence of rare prime ribeyes, dry-aged porterhouses and turning burly machismo on its ear in the process, Barclay Prime is Starr’s most mature restaurant.

Interior designer India Mahdavi kept the luxe Barclay as low-lit and darkly wooded as it had been in its piano-bar past, but she quirkily threw zebra rugs on marble floors to tweak the hunter-gatherer feel familiar to the steakhouse ideal. While lining the dining room with walls of studious library-quality bookcases gives the Barclay’s maleness a smart sturdiness, some twists come from its close-clustered rows of mod swiveling leather chairs in baby blue and white, Italian marble tables and intricate chandeliers. It’s quietly hip without being haughty.

Still, nothing so jerks the chain of steakhouse traditionalism as chef Todd Mark Miller. Having spent his chef life next to the likes of Nobu Matsuhisa and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, he deals a gasping affront to big meat’s staidness by creating not only the now famous $100 Philly Cheesesteak but Kobe Beef Sliders meant to mimic White Castle Burgers. "We’re using the best possible ingredients in which to pull ourselves apart from the Ruth’s Chris’ and Mortons’ of the world," says Miller.

He doesn’t just concentrate on silly items like the kobe beef, triple-cream tallegio and caramelized shallot-fused Cheesesteak and Sliders, but also on making unique usual suspects indigenous to steakhouses. These include a raw bar whose oceanic joys are pristinely served on ice block-filled terrines with in-house sauces like red-wine reduction mignonette with floral Grains of Paradise pepper and cooked-down, tomato-based cocktail sauce. "I want to do the opposite of everything any steakhouse would do. Look at my foie gras PB&J," says Miller. (He means a pistachio-crusted brioche sammich, filled with more pistachios, seasonal fruit, thyme and foie gras. "It’s sublime. And different.")

While Miller, 36, ideally loves to center on "healthy, straightforward food" -- shaved vegetable salads with 19 garden varieties of vegetables, olive oil and truffle juice, creamed spinach and glazed butternut squash to die for -- he’s gleeful when fashioning hearty, rare masterpieces of Gachot & Gachot prime ribeye, the Manhattan-based platinum standard of the steak industry. "That steak you had," says Miller, passionately -- "the way it cuts, the age on it, its tenderness -- is leagues beyond any other meat. And its freshness and preparation is all part of Barclay’s journey."

Barclay Prime, The Barclay, 237 S. 18th St., 215-732-7560.