Peter Luger, which began as a billiards and bowling alley in 1887 in Brooklyn, after years of decline was bought by Sol Forman and his family and became the most highly touted steakhouses in America. Famous for its sliced porterhouse steaks, its refusal to take credit cards and a wait list for tables that can stretch out for months, Luger, which has long had a branch in Great Neck, Long Island, has in recent years expanded to Tokyo and Las Vegas. I spoke with Daniel Turtel, VP of Luger, about the expansion, the availability of USDA Prime meat and how to get a table.

Peter Luger has long been famous for personally choosing and aging its high quality USDA Prime steaks. But the NYC Meat Packing District has lost almost all its suppliers. How does PL source that same quality?

The Meatpacking District has lost most of its suppliers, but there are still a few holdouts, like Jobbagy and Weischel, which we still visit weekly. The other distributors haven’t moved out of NYC, just out of Meatpacking, to Hunts Point in the Bronx, which has a huge market, as do certain areas of Long Island. So it’s a farther drive, but one of the four of us (Dan, Amy, Jody, David) visit each market every week.

I read that when PL has not been able to obtain the consistent quality that you will restrict reservations. Is this still true?

It’s still true that we would, but luckily, we haven’t had to do that for many years now. The beef industry increasingly uses big data to track cattle grading, including factors that contribute to Prime grading—whether that’s genetic, feeding, climate, etc. In 2010, 3% of beef was graded prime; in 2021, it was closer to 10%. Combine this with the increased overall production, and you’ve got way more Prime beef in the market, and you know where it’s going to be coming from. For us, the net effect is more consistent beef supply, but more work, because we are looking for only the very top percentage out of USDA Prime, and we generally have more beef to sift through to find loins and ribs that meet our standard.

How can there now be so many new high-end steakhouses and chains around the U.S. that all claim to be serving USDA Prime? Has the supply increased exponentially and how have you managed to obtain your needed amounts for Brooklyn, Great Neck, Tokyo and now Las Vegas? Who oversees purchasing in those last two cities?

The numbers around Prime percentages have changed drastically in the past decade, and while Prime is up across the nation, that hides the real story, which is that certain regions and certain meatpackers are seeing virtually all the gains in Prime grading. For instance, here is a link to this week’s USDA Grading report below. While Prime nationally was 9.7%, Regions 1-5 are grading 18.26% Prime, while Region 6 is grading 3.16% Prime. What these disparities mean is that we’ve got to be more selective about whom we work with and what regions they operate out of, but once we pick our partners (and we’ve visited every ranch and packing house that we’re using at our new locations), we have a much easier time of filling our weekly quotas. 

https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/nw_ls196.txt

The Brooklyn location is famous for the difficulty in getting a reservation. What tips can you give to get a table? Can one eat at the bar at PL? If one just shows up at, say 9 p.m., is there a good chance of being seated?

Early weekday lunches are a great way to sneak in, and eating at the bar before 3 p.m. is a good move. Depending on the night, 9 o’clock is the right time to try to snag a last-minute seat; you’ll have to wait a bit, but your name will get in before they start closing out tables for service.

Is the Great Neck location  (below) just as difficult to get a reservation at?

Great Neck tends to be slammed on the weekends and holidays, all summer and Thanksgiving through New Year’s. But it’s also out on the Island, and so weekday lunches and evenings are much easier. The beef is exactly the same, and they’ve got a really unique lobster main course, which we don’t have in Brooklyn. If you can get to Great Neck, go.

Do you still take only cash, debit cards and Peter Luger cards?

Yes, and gift certificates. We’re up to about 100,000 PL account holders, which is pretty special, and it’s a source of pride and competition to have a lower, older number. At least a few times a year, we’ll get a request from the children of a cardholder who has passed away to reissue the card to them with a little second-generation designation, so 100 becomes 100-A, 100-B and 100-C, for instance. Seeing our family business become part of another family’s tradition is just one of the best things about being here.

 

What effect did the negative N.Y. Times review have on business?

The immediate aftereffect was that reservations went through the roof. It seemed that anybody who had dined with us in the prior ten years wanted to come out and show support, and anybody who hadn’t dined with us wanted to come out to weigh in on the debate. That was October, so it basically began the Thanksgiving-New Year’s rush about a month early. Things went back to normal in January, but then the pandemic hit and everything changed again.

How did PL bounce back after Covid? And what happened to all that beef PL and other steakhouses were not buying during the closures?

Covid was, of course, tough for everyone. Our customer base—both locally and nationally—was incredibly supportive during this time, and our mail-order meat business via The Butcher Shop skyrocketed. We started doing delivery and takeout, which we’d never done before, and we were able to send thank you lunches to the hospital crews who were working through an incredibly difficult time. That was one thing we were really proud of during Covid. Another was that we kept our full staff on full family health insurance the whole time, so that they wouldn’t need to be worried or changing providers in the middle of the pandemic. The result was that when finally we were legally able to open our doors, we didn’t have to scramble to rehire like a lot of other places had, and we bounced back right away.

Is there a next generation of the family to take over and continue its legacy?

Right now, generations two through four are holding down the fort and represented in management. My great-aunt, Amy Rubenstein, is Sol Forman’s daughter, my aunt Jody Storch is Sol Forman’s granddaughter, and David Berson and I are Sol’s great-grandsons. There’s no next generation yet to speak of, but we’ve got a few family weddings next year, so things are in the works!

Many N.Y. steakhouses now claim to have owners and staff who once worked at PL. Is this largely true or are they just claims?

It’s true. Quite a few waiters have gone on to start their own places, and this has definitely helped to make the menu that we pioneered the sort of standard for the Classic American Steakhouse. The service and menus at these places tend to look like ours, but the beef aging and selection—always done at Luger by family—is different. It’s neat to see the little variations here and there.

Are there any plans to open more PLs? And why are the Tokyo (left) and Las Vegas branches not mentioned on the Peter Luger website?

As of right now, we have no immediate plans for more openings. (Tokyo and Vegas branches will be up by the time this goes live!)

Prices have risen across the board for beef. Is this likely to continue and has there been price resistance?

There is definitely resistance, but so far it seems to be futile—especially for those buying Prime short loins or ribs. Even within USDA Prime-rated cattle, the prices of different primal cuts (Chuck, Rib, Loin, Round, Flank, Short Plate, Shank, Brisket) move together, but not perfectly in tandem. We use Prime chuck for our burgers, for instance, and while this is much more expensive to buy than Choice chuck, the price difference is not as great as the difference between Prime Loin and Choice Loin. Prime Loins and Ribs are going to be the most sought-after cuts, and continued demand for them will probably bulldoze over whatever price resistance comes in at other points of the market. 

 

 

 

      "You're not being rude enough," was the first thing I said to our waiter as he cheerfully guided us through the menu and drink order. He just winked and shrugged, "That's not the way we do things around here," as he continued to be more solicitous than a billboard lawyer at a fender-bender.
    Which is another way of saying that when it comes to atmosphere and service, Peter Luger Las Vegas is as far from the actual Peter Luger (the one located at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge in actual New York), as Caesars Palace is from actual Rome. Except for the food—which hits most of the benchmarks established in the glory years when Luger was widely considered the best steakhouse in the country.
      Back then, Luger was famous for several things: cash only (unless you had a PL credit card), rude waiters, and having the best beef in the city. Those were the days before any purveyor of prime could access superior beef from around the globe—a time when New York City got all the best steers, and few in America even knew what dry-aging was. Back then, when it came to sourcing prime grade beef, the Forman family was known for being the toughest customers in New York. Trading on that reputation, the family (yes, it's still family-owned) has finally started to expand, opening first in Tokyo in 2021, and now in Caesars Palace.
      Before we get to the food, back to that rudeness thing. On both of my visits to Peter Luger in the ‘90s, I went early, without a reservation (the second time with three teenagers in tow), and humbly asked if they could squeeze us in. They did, remarkably quickly, in one of the stark, Teutonic rooms—more German beer hall than American steakhouse—at bleached wood tables saturated with a century of beef fat, smoke and history.
      Service was always cheerfully brusque but never unpleasant, and the porterhouse steaks were life-changing: a study in mineral-richness, shot through with tangy, gamey beefiness, singular in their haunting intensity. The only steaks I thought were in the same league at the time were a few in New York (Palm, Keen’s, Gallagher’s) and Gibson's in Chicago. But Luger was in a league of its own. Then and now, the dry-aging still permeates the beef, causing textures to tenderize, and flavors to intensify and "double-back on themselves" (Pete Wells)—the plate spitting butter and melted tallow so hot you can finish cooking your slice on the sides of the platter if you want to cook it a tad more.
      Is the beef as good today as the steaks I remember?  Tough to say, as I consider those Luger steaks in the ‘90s to be the apotheosis of the porterhouse that has rarely been equaled. Even after tasting hundreds of slabs of dry-aged steer from Soho to Tokyo, they remain my standard against which others are judged. The sheer size and volume of the new operation can never duplicate those tastes, but the buttery mouthfeel and nutty, umami undertones of my three steaks at the fourth Peter Luger puts this beef at or near the top of any in Vegas, and will no doubt send some fetishistic foodies into fits of tantric food-gasms.
      As for the rest of the menu, it remains unapologetically old school, stubbornly avoiding anything fancy. Certain items struck me as better crafted here than there: a densely crabby crab cake, a decent Caesar salad, and crispy/creamy German potatoes, which seemed straight from my grandmother’s kitchen. They, along with some non-food improvements—well-spaced tables, better stemware, large circular bar brought front and center into the restaurant (the former Rao’s)—all calculated to produce a sense of masculine comfort, while catering to the demands of a three-hundred seat Vegas steakhouse slinging 2,000 lbs. of meat a day.
      Upon taking one of those seats, they give you a fancy cocktail menu, and a wine list full of interesting bottles. The one in Brooklyn has always been infamous for being barely above the "red, white, or pink?" level of selections, unless your tastes run to overpriced California cabs. This one isn’t cheap, but still possible to mine for fairly-priced bottles, once you understand that $125 is the new $75 when it comes to Las Vegas Strip wine lists.
      You will then be handed a menu with a large letterbox in the center outlining steak for two, three or four ($148.95 to $285.95). Those steaks are all porterhouses—a thick, T-bone containing part of both the sirloin and filet—broiled and brought to the table already sliced amidst the hiss of fat coming off white-hot plates. They are what you order at Peter Luger in the same way you go to Mott 32 for the Peking duck. Everything else is window dressing.  All beef (and lamb) is cured on-premises in a 4,000-square-foot meat locker below the restaurant.
      Don’t expect any bargains, but the "steak for two" ($150) will easily feed four, unless you have an NFL tackle among you. If you insist, lamb, chicken, and Dover sole are there for the pikers, and the bar burger $25 is a study in simplicity, but also a beefy showstopper. As is the horseradish-tinged steak sandwich ($34), served on a slightly sweet, squishy onion roll.
      I happen to be a fan of the Luger steak sauce, even though Pete Wells (in a New York Times take-down in 2019) described it as ketchup and horseradish fortified with corn syrup. Another item which often comes in for criticism is the signature tomato and onion salad; it may be a bit bizarre, but it's as much a part of the Luger legacy as sizzling fat. Wells insulted the dish by stating it "tastes like 1979," but that's exactly the point: this was your grandma's idea of sweet-sour salad sixty years ago. It is about as voguish as a dickey and all the more glorious for it.
      Desserts are no-nonsense classics: hot fudge sundae, properly crusted, almost savory New York cheesecake, apple strudel, chocolate mousse pie—all of them served mit schlag (unsweetened whipped cream), reminding us of the place's Germanic roots and sending everyone home with a satisfied grin.
      The staff is an all-star lineup of local restaurant pros who have put in their time from the biggest operations to the smallest sandwich shops. Executive Chef Eric L'Huillier has gone from Pinot Brasserie (Joachim Splichal's once-underrated bistro in the Venetian) to being top toque at Wally's, to now heading a kitchen where ten flaming broilers are expected to feed hundreds of customers a day. Beverage Director Paul Argier is responsible for the much-improved, multi-national wine program.
      How the new Luger stacks up against other top-shelf purveyors of Prime probably depends on your expectations when approaching an offshoot of such a famous restaurant with such a storied history—a nondescript building in Brooklyn (formerly a billiard hall and bowling alley) that became a cathedral of beef (and one of the templates for the modern American steakhouse) in the latter half of the last century.
      You can pooh-pooh this expansion to Las Vegas as a simple cash grab that is “nothing like the original,” or appreciate it for the food being faithful to what made it famous. Let’s be honest here: in the 21st century, such top-shelf, well-marbled cuts (which used to be the exclusive province of a few select, big city steakhouses) are now sold world-wide. I used to consider it a treat to fly to Chicago or New York to dive into a Brobdingnagian, dry-aged porterhouse. Now there are a dozen steakhouses within twenty minutes of my house where I can indulge my Flinstonean fantasies.
      Thus, with the beef no longer being unique, the final question becomes: Is the meal worth the trip and the tariff? The answer is yes, if you remember you are here solely for the main event: bragging rights to having taken down one of the world’s great steaks. You don't go to Peter Luger for innovations, chef's creations, or seasonal eating. You are there to relive a vibe when prime beef and gut-busting spuds defined a certain mode of American prosperity. When you were what you ate, and what we ate was a lot of steak.
      One hundred and thirty-five years on, from the point of view of a palate who has eaten lots of them, this one remains one of the best, and more than worth boasting about. And in Las Vegas, it will be always be served with a smile.