Chicago Cut Steakhouse - A Half Great Place

I had some friends in from out of town and we decided to dine at Chicago Cut Steakhouse last Saturday night. The experience was a mixed bag. We arrived a few minutes early for our 7:00 reservation and the place was already pretty full, but we were offered the option to be seated right away or to have a drink in the bar first. We opted for immediate seating and ordering drinks at the table. So far so good. When the Maitre D let us into the dining room, he took us to possibly the worst table in the house. It looked like it had been set up in what normally was an aisle. When asked if our party could be seated at the empty 4 top in the window instead, we were told simply "NO", which I thought was a particularly rude and odd way to handle such a request. I'm not an inexperienced steakhouse diner and I know how these things work, but this guy just didn't want to play the glad handing steakhouse game. At least make up some kind of half-assed excuse or allow me to duke you $20 rather than just slam the door on such a normal request. As a result, I was constantly bumped and jostled during the entire meal by waiters and patrons who needed to walk by our table (and there were a lot of them).

As has been written in the press, the wine list is on an iPad. Our waiter (there is no sommelier) spent a fairly long time explaining how the iPad wine app worked and very little time actually talking about wine. It turns out that his response to just about any question (wine-related or otherwise) was, "Oh! That's one of my favorites!" We probably heard that at least four different times. Other than that, service was pretty cold, but efficient overall.

But what about the food? I've got to say that my bone in ribeye was one of the better pieces of meat that I have ever gotten in a Chicago steakhouse. Like David Burke's, they dry age their (prime) beef in house, and they do a really nice job. My friend also ordered the ribeye and both of the ladies in our party ordered filets, which are offered in 4 different sizes including a bone in version. I'm not much of a filet eater, but judging by their clean plates the girls enjoyed their steaks as well. Side dishes were a mixed bag. Caesar salad was very good, although not prepared tableside. An order of the waiter recommended Truffle Scalloped Potato (it was one of his favorites ) turned out to be undercooked (potatoes still somewhat raw) with very little truffle flavor, but the Grilled Asparagus and the Steamed Broccoli and Spinach were both pretty good. For dessert, we saw most tables getting a typically huge piece of chocolate cake, but we opted to split a piece of Key Lime Pie, after all it was one of our waiter's favorites. The Key Lime "Pie" turned out to be more like a key lime cheesecake. Taken as a cheesecake and not a pie, the crust was very good, but it wasn't a pie crust (or a pie filling, for that matter). The obligatory whipped cream on top tasted of chemical whipped topping and not cream, which was an absolute deal breaker for me. I'm a key lime pie purest, so I wasn't very happy with this presentation, but everyone else at the table seemed to enjoy it.

Overall, I'd say that the food (steak) here is a winner, but the cramped quarters and soulless service leaves much to be desired. Maybe going during the week rather than a busy Saturday night is a better idea. If someone suggested going there, I wouldn't say no, but I won't be rushing back on my own anytime soon.

Chicago Cut Steakhouse
300 N LaSalle St
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 329-1800

stevez wrote:The Key Lime "Pie" turned out to be more like a key lime cheesecake. Taken as a cheesecake and not a pie, the crust was very good, but it wasn't a pie crust (or a pie filling, for that matter). The obligatory whipped cream on top tasted of chemical whipped topping and not cream, which was an absolute deal breaker for me...

Steve,
What sort of crust was it? I expect graham cracker crust on a KLP -- and it's common enough on a cheesecake.

Not having real whipped cream, especially at that level, is an absolute deal breaker... but not as bad as the KLP in the start of the movie "Natural Born Killers" -- anyone who'd serve kelly-green jello as key lime pie deserved to die. Horribly.

JoelF wrote:

stevez wrote:The Key Lime "Pie" turned out to be more like a key lime cheesecake. Taken as a cheesecake and not a pie, the crust was very good, but it wasn't a pie crust (or a pie filling, for that matter). The obligatory whipped cream on top tasted of chemical whipped topping and not cream, which was an absolute deal breaker for me...

Steve,
What sort of crust was it? I expect graham cracker crust on a KLP -- and it's common enough on a cheesecake.

Sorry, I meant to say it wasn't a Key Lime pie crust. This was one of those chocolate variations. Possibly made with Oreo's. Not at all correct for KLP.

I'll note that my friends and I found it to be a nice lunch option. While the menu has only a few sandwiches, the specials board had several more. The prime meatball sub (server indicated the meatballs were 75% filet meat) was darn good, a friend indicated the corned beef on the reuben was excellent, and the burger is good and at 10 bucks ($1 extra for cheese) pretty reasonably priced for the area.

Another friend of mine who has gone for dinner concurs on the bone-in ribeye. He's a steakhouse regular and said it's one of the best he's had.

I had heard very positive things about this place, and am surprised by stevez's report of dumbass service, and honestly, as a fan of KLP (it's what I have for my birthday every year instead of cake), the rendition at CCS does not appeal.

I like being able to go to Burke's or S&W and buy the raw meat to cook at home. May use same strategy at CCS, thus avoiding pitfalls discussed above.

David Hammond wrote:I like being able to go to Burke's or S&W and buy the raw meat to cook at home. May use same strategy at CCS, thus avoiding pitfalls discussed above.

If they'll sell you raw meat like the places you mentioned, I'd highly recommend going for it! The steak was really excellent. It was good enough for me to overlook most of the rest of my experience.

I ate here about 2 weeks ago. Without asking our party of 4 was seated right next to the windows overlooking the river. We all found the service especially friendly and helpful. None of us were fans of the iPad wine list, though - the wine list was fine but we just didn't find it an especially great application of technology (and the response time was rather sluggish). Mind you this party wasn't a bunch of luddites longing for the touch of paper - we are all IT folks and part of our dinner discussion was how much the 3 out of 4 of us love our Kindles.

Interesting results on our wine service. We ordered a Domaine Serene Yamhill to start. Our waiter came back with "good news and bad news". The bad news was they were out of the Yamhill. The good news was that would sell us the Domaine Serene Evenstad Reserve for the same price as the Yamhill (it's listed at just over twice as much). Ummm, OK? Caveat being that if we wanted a second bottle later it would have to be at the normal price. Still OK by us, cross that bridge when we get there. So . . . the bridge came and we figured what the heck, another bottle of the Evenstad. Guess what? Yes, there's good news and bad news. Out of the Evenstad but offered up a Pahlmeyer (listed at $30 more than the Evenstad) at the Evenstad price. OK, we sez. Turned out we didn't like the Pahlmeyer nearly as much as the Evenstad (it wasn't bad or anything, just much "tamer" than what we had been drinking) but I still salute their effort to satisfy us.

I varied from my normal bone-in ribeye and opted for the bone-in NY strip, medium rare. It arrived cooked as requested and was a marvelous steak. Two companions had the bone-in ribeye with similar results and the 4th had a small filet which she quite liked. It's interesting to note that we were informed that not only are the larger cuts dry aged but that the filets are wet aged; I'm not aware of any local places that age their filets (though I could be wrong). Our truffled scalloped potatoes fared better than yours, Steve, and the creamed spinach and the mushrooms were also quite good. We were all much too full for dessert so no experience there.

I do think the room is too tightly packed. It is very difficult to make your way through the room and it is almost a given that when one table is being served an adjacent table is going to be temporarily disrupted. I can easily see how anything less than an ideal table could make for an uncomfortable experience. I can't see them giving up the revenue as long as they are packing them in (and it was full when we were there) but a little "less is more" would go a long way if they removed a couple tables to improve the spacing.

All in all the food, especially the beef, was quite good and on a par with other quality steakhouses. The service was helpful and friendly without being intrusive. I'd say I like Chicago Cut better than Gibsons but, all things considered I find the overall experience at Smith & Wollensky better if only because of the better spacing there (yeah, I really like my space). Oh, and the Old Fashioned I had at the bar while waiting for our party was just not really that good - but it did help take the chill off after walking there from Monroe and Lasalle.

Had a less than satisfactory lunch at Chicago Cut yesterday. Ironically, where it failed was the meat.

Our party started with raw oysters, which were pristinely fresh and tasty—a half dozen from the East Coast, a half dozen from the West. Can’t remember the names of the varieties, but based on these, I would trust Chicago Cut again to do well with oysters.

Two of us had the Colorado lamb chops, and even though the two of us ordered them at different temperatures, and even though they arrived at different temperatures, they shared one thing in common—the meat was tough, chewy and stringy. No lamb chops should be this way, let alone $39 lamb chops. If it had been just me, I might have thought the problem a “one-off” or a function of a suboptimal doneness, but my friend’s take on his chops was exactly the same as mine on mine.

Another friend who made an entrée of the crab and avocado appetizer reported the crab as tasting “two days old,” and that he'd had much better in Chicago. The friend who ordered the ribeye steak reported it being very much to his liking, as did the friend who ordered the salmon.

In compensation for the lamb chops (about which we had reported our displeasure to the waiter when he asked), we were comped to three large desserts shared among the five of us—a slice of chocolate cake, a slice of key-lime cheesecake, and a blueberry crumble. These were excellent. And we appreciated the gesture, as a result of which nobody left disgruntled.

So—a great start, an excellent finish, but some not inconsiderable disappointment with the main event.

Any more recent experiences here?

I eat here semi-regularly. Whether you love this place or not depends on whether you work in a newer fancy office building in the Loop (or Midtown Manhattan or similar financial center). If you do, as do I, the place is utterly charmless because it feels like work. It's like eating in a big conference room or corporate cantina. If you don't, you might like it quite a bit and may feel as if you are in Mad Men, 2012 version. Nice building, great view, very "corporate." I know people, smart, well travelled out of towners, who love the place and don't want to eat elsewhere because the view is great, the food is solid and it seems like the center of the Chicago universe to them. For the same sort of thing, I prefer Joe's or the oft-forgotten Keefer's. But those spots have minimal views. Bottom line is that Chicago Cut is more of what we already have a lot of in this town: competent, expensive steakhouse with good meat, good service, outrageous wine prices, and OK sides and non-steak choices. Terrible generic name, too.

JeffB wrote:I eat here semi-regularly. Whether you love this place or not depends on whether you work in a newer fancy office building in the Loop (or Midtown Manhattan or similar financial center). If you do, as do I, the place is utterly charmless because it feels like work. It's like eating in a big conference room or corporate cantina. If you don't, you might like it quite a bit and may feel as if you are in Mad Men, 2012 version. Nice building, great view, very "corporate." I know people, smart, well travelled out of towners, who love the place and don't want to eat elsewhere because the view is great, the food is solid and it seems like the center of the Chicago universe to them. For the same sort of thing, I prefer Joe's or the oft-forgotten Keefer's. But those spots have minimal views. Bottom line is that Chicago Cut is more of what we already have a lot of in this town: competent, expensive steakhouse with good meat, good service, outrageous wine prices, and OK sides and non-steak choices. Terrible generic name, too.

Forgot to mention the cramped (IMO) seating and the stupid iPad winelist. I'll go to CCS if someone else is paying but on my dime I prefer other "choices" (Keefer's is one of them, to be sure).

I have not eaten at Chicago Cut so I cannot comment much, other than to note that they dry age their beef, so it's one of the few options in Chicago with a number of dry aged options.

Our reactions are pretty much in line with what has preceded us in this thread: excellent meat, tables far too close together, overpriced. We were going to a concert downtown recently and so made an extremely early reservation: 5 pm. We walked in to find the place already bustling with probably some ten tables already occupied. Graduations, we were told, but obviously other things going on too. The best part of being there at 5 pm was that, for all the bustle, the place wasn’t packed yet. And so the fact that the tables are far too close to each other didn’t matter so much. By the time we left, it was becoming an issue though.

Our server, who sounded Australian to our inexpert ears, was excellent. He was almost always there when we had a question or a request. But he never hovered. He usually materialized to ask the right questions or provide the right answers at precisely the right moment; he knew his menu well (I asked a specific question about how their Delmonico is cut: different places do it differently.) He was very clever, subtle, and never pushy about the frequent upselling, so although we heard it, we didn’t take offense; we’ve had a few servers (fortunately only a few) in the past who were blatant and difficult about it, so we understood what was going on and didn’t mind because he was so…smooth.

We began with the crab cake—at $19, more than a little pricey. Speaking of which, prices, as noted, are much too high and, in too many cases, whether to “justify” the price (or for some other reason), the portion size is ridiculous. Do not order one side per person; one side will feed two or three people easily. We split our sides and still had more than sufficient food for the two of us. Back to the crab cake: large, packed with crab and, happily, not a lot else. Not the best rendition I’ve ever had, but certainly in the upper group. The Lovely Dining Companion liked, but was not overwhelmingly happy, with her petite filet for reasons I was never able to quite discern. It may have been a trifle overcooked for her but my Delmonico (the rib-eye cut, for those who are interested) was absolutely perfect. I asked for it a stage beyond medium-rare but not all the way to medium and it arrived exactly as requested.

Creamed spinach was okay but no better; there was something (I could never quite put my finger on it that gave it a somewhat odd flavor). Berghoff will always be number one in my book. This was a perfectly acceptable rendition but not what I personally enjoy. And the serving was probably three or four cups’ worth, if not more. The hash browns were delicious with an extraordinarily well done crust. But again: there were probably another four cups’ worth.

The wine list, as noted, is presently on a tablet. Tap a listing (which contains an image of the bottle, the name, vintage, and price) and you get a little more info, but not much. Depending on the bottle, you might get the alcohol content, the grapes that went into the wine and, usually, a satellite image of the location of the winery. The tablet, at this point, seems more a gimmick than something truly useful. As LDC said, why not use the opportunity to cross-sell, which seems so important otherwise. “If you like this wine, you might enjoy it with the lamb chops….” Or, “if you’re having the NY Strip, try this wine because it’s got a lot of tannin and….” Under the circumstances, the tablet just didn’t do much for me. And, since LDC doesn’t drink alcohol, I checked the by-the-glass list and was frankly disappointed at the selection. I found it uneven, offering some standard choices, some off-the-wall choices and with some strange omissions. For example, not a single Zin was available by the glass. I chose a Joseph Phelps 2008 Cab that was excellent but, at $25/glass, more than a little pricey.

The kicker was dessert. We ordered the carrot cake. To split. The “piece” of carrot cake that came was—and I do not exaggerate, I measured it when we came home—was fully five inches square and three inches high. At $10, I suppose it’s a bargain. But why? Seriously. Why? This is an expense-account, see-and-be-seen, beautiful, old-style steak house. I guess they figure these portions are “manly.” Or that people will split them. The server warned us in advance of ordering (though he didn’t do this for the sides). I don’t know. But what if I just wanted a piece of carrot cake and I was alone; or others at my table wanted other things? I’d rather have a reasonably sized piece instead of taking home a piece that weighed, no joke, over a pound. What is gained, other than the “wow” factor, by presenting a slab like that?

In sum: a largely excellent, very overpriced meal in a beautiful room with no space to move, served by a highly professional, top-notch server. Unless our dinner is being paid for or we have someone we really need to impress (and who would be impressed by some of this silliness), we’re not returning anytime soon. Pity.

I love the food but hate the crowds and almost every time I've been, I've had service issues (I've been probably 6-7 times). To me, the steak is among the very best (if not the best) of Chicago steakhouses, but how they manage to have so many service issues is beyond me.

Gypsy Boy wrote:The kicker was dessert. We ordered the carrot cake. To split. The “piece” of carrot cake that came was—and I do not exaggerate, I measured it when we came home—was fully five inches square and three inches high. At $10, I suppose it’s a bargain. But why? Seriously. Why? This is an expense-account, see-and-be-seen, beautiful, old-style steak house. I guess they figure these portions are “manly.” Or that people will split them. The server warned us in advance of ordering (though he didn’t do this for the sides). I don’t know. But what if I just wanted a piece of carrot cake and I was alone; or others at my table wanted other things? I’d rather have a reasonably sized piece instead of taking home a piece that weighed, no joke, over a pound. What is gained, other than the “wow” factor, by presenting a slab like that? .

We experienced (and were not able to put much of a dent in) a gargantuan carrot cake slice (a pound is not exaggerating) at Gibson's. Must be a kind of steak house tradition (we so rarely "go out out for steak" that I can't say for sure).

One major advantage Chicago Cut has over some other steakhouses is its gorgeous patio overlooking the river. I'm willing to wait quite some time to sit there (I would describe last night's wait for outdoor seating as 1.5 cocktails past reservation time). And I was reminded last night how fantastic their bone-in, dry aged ribeye is. It was cooked a perfect medium rare, perfectly (and simply) seasoned, gorgeous streaks of fat running throughout, and just a little funk (though not as much as you'd get with some of the longer dry aged steaks at Primehouse). Beef really does not get much better than this.