Steak Houses

EdendaleGrill.Housed in an old firehouse and named for Los Angeles’ first movie studio, Silver Lake’s Edendale Grill is a bit of set-dressed history. Craftsman-era lighting fixtures with mica shades cast a warm, golden glow in the dining room. The Mixville bar has an original hammered-tin ceiling and firehouse doors. The kitchen serves up its own brand of culinary nostalgia for midcentury Midwestern American cooking: oysters Rockefeller, caesar salads made tableside, Green Goddess salad dressing, sand dabs, steaks and chops, even a beet-red velvet cake from the Waldorf. Despite somewhat harried service and slapdash cooking, the Edendale Grill can be a tough reservation, which indicates just how much Atwater–Echo Park–Los Feliz–Silver Lake citizens have hungered for such a fine-looking, versatile neighborhood dinner house. 2838RowenaAve.,SilverLake,(323)666-2000.DinnerSun.–Thurs.5:30p.m.–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.5:30p.m.–11:30p.m.Sundaybrunch10a.m.–3p.m.Fullbar.Complimentaryvalet.Entrées$13.75–$27.AE,DC,MC,V.American.MH $$ Gallo’sGrill.With its tiled patio furnished with oversize wooden tables, shaded from the sky by a canopy, and decorated with citrus trees and “peeling” brick, this sweet Mexican steak house serves everybody’s idea of a great Eastside meal: warm, thick corn tortillas (or paper-thin flour tortillas) patted to order, fresh salsas brought to the table perched on intricate wrought-iron stands, garlicky steaks served still sizzling, flanked by bushels of charred scallions on superheated platters. The beef is prepared in a specifically Mexican way, butterflied and re-butterflied and laid open like a scroll, a broad, thin fileteabiertomarinated enough to allow for a bit of juice. 4533CesarE.ChavezAve.,LosAngeles,(323)980-8669.LunchanddinnerWed.–Mon.11a.m.–9p.m.Noalcohol.Lotparking.Dinnerfortwo,foodonly,$20–$25.D,MC,V.Mexican.JG $ Jar.Chef Suzanne Tracht’s interpretation of the contemporary American steak house means many sides and sauces and the occasional Asian twist (duck fried rice, sautéed pea tendrils, tamarind sauce). But meat, braised or dry-aged and grilled, is the real focus: flavorful and tender New York steak with the bone in, magnificent pot roast. The décor is tasteful, the art wry, the service totally professional and the noise level off the charts. 8225BeverlyBlvd.,LosAngeles,(323)655-6566.Thurs.andTues.–Sun.5:30–10p.m.,Fri.–Sat.to11p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,D,MC,V.Entrées$19–$29.CaliforniaAmerican.MH $$ Lawry’sthePrimeRib.When restaurateur Lawrence Frank misconstrued in the ’30s something he’d heard about the famous roast beef at London’s Simpson’s-on-the-Strand, he inadvertently came up with American prime rib as we know it: big, pink roasts glistening from silver carts, carved to order tableside and served with Yorkshire pudding, mashed potato, and salad from a spinning bowl. Lawry’s prime rib is as archetypally Angeleno as the Tudor mansions and yawning Norman cottages of Beverly Hills. 100N.LaCienegaBlvd.,BeverlyHills,(310)652-2827.Mon.–Thurs.5–10p.m.,Fri.5–11p.m.,Sat.4:30–11p.m.,Sun.4–10p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,CB,DC,MC,V.Entrées$26–$42.American.JG $$$ LincolnSteakhouseAmericana.I would have bet there was nothing new under the sun when it came to steak houses, that every possible permutation of the Rat Pack lifestyle, every $120 Kobe-beef fillet, every conceivable tomato salad, cigar station and vodka martini had been explored. This steak-house thing has been going on a long time, after all, and even the most Atkins-crazed Robb Report subscriber could hardly want for variety. But it’s not the braised turnip greens that make the difference at Lincoln Steakhouse, owned by the people who run Paladar. The profoundly charred Angus-beef porterhouses are fine, but no better than you’ll find at a dozen other places in town. What Lincoln has that other steak houses do not is young women, in packs and in pairs, on dates, on business dinners and dining alone. And these aren’t young women nibbling salads or sipping white wine, or hanging around the bar waiting for you, but women ordering big steaks and eating them. I would credit the well-known charm of the antler chandeliers for this phenomenon, but I would probably be wrong. 2460WilshireBlvd.,SantaMonica,(310)828-3304.LunchMon.–Fri.11a.m.–2p.m.plusbarmenuuntil5:30p.m.DinnerMon.–Sat.5–11p.m.,Sun.5–10p.m.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,MC,V.$20–$30.New-fashionedsteakhouse.JG $$$ Mastro’s.One of a small chain of Scottsdale-based steak houses, Mastro’s has the look — volcanic rock work, blackout curtains, black-leather banquettes — of desert resorts, supper clubs, casinos and other booze-filled refuges where the dreaded sun don’t shine. Eat downstairs for more intimate dining, or upstairs if you’re up to walking the gauntlet of a long bar (where serious drinkers swivel on cue to watch you pass) to get to your seat. The excellent service staff is adept, adaptable and good-natured, even when their customers — Beverly Hills carnivores — are not. Meat dominates the menu; steak to be exact. Order the Kansas City bone-in, the porterhouse or the bone-in rib-eye (the latter, ordered charred rare, is a glorious, rich, big, big-flavored piece of meat with a crusty char oozing juice). Here, rare means rare, i.e., cold inside — yes. Start with the horseradish-spiked caesar salad, or the traditional iceberg wedge with blue cheese. Sides — fried onions, creamed corns, sugar snap peas, potatos gratin — are fresh, enormous, delicious: Split ’em. Finish with a paradigmatic Key lime pie. 246N.CañonDr.,BeverlyHills,(310)888-8782.Openfordinnerweekdays5–11p.m.,weekends5p.m.–mid.Entrées$20–$47.Fullbar.Valetparking.AE,D,DC,MC,V.American.MH $$$ Nick&Stef’s.Joachim Splichal’s downtown steak house pushes the genre’s envelope. The décor is sedate enough — banquettes wear banker’s gray — but annexed to the dining room is a climate-­controlled glass case filled with slabs of darkening, crusting, dry-aging beef — a library of meat. The à la carte menu features 12 kinds of potatoes, 12 sauces and at least as many other side dishes. The outside patio — a sunny clearing in a forest of skyscrapers — may be the best urban dining spot in town. 330S.HopeSt.(WellsFargoCenter),downtown,(213)680-0330.LunchMon.–Fri.11:30a.m.–2:30p.m.DinnerMon.–Thurs.5:30–9:30p.m.,Fri.5:30–10:30p.m.,Sat.5–10:30p.m.,Sun.4:30–8:30p.m.Fullbar.ParkinginWellsFargoCenter.Entrées$19–$37.Americansteakhouse.MH $$ Taylor’sSteakHouse.The two Taylors are everything a steak house should be: dark, clubby, with red booths and frosted glass. The drinks are strong, and the menu’s long suit is meat, specifically steak, at very delicious prices. Never mind that you might be the only Democrat or Jew or nonwhite in the room. Get a culotte, the rib-eye, or the big fillet. And don’t miss the Molly Salad, a variation on the lettuce wedge, invented by a former waitress. 3361W.EighthSt.,LosAngeles,(213)382-8449.901FoothillBlvd.,LaCañada-Flintridge,(818)790-7668.Lunchsevendays,11:30a.m.–4p.m.Dinnersevendays,Sun.–Thurs.4–9:30p.m.,Fri.–Sat.4–10:30p.m.Fullbar.Lotparking.AE,MC,V.Entrées$12.50–$24.95.American.MH $