New York Steakhouses | SteakMap

The Best Steakhouses in New York

New York is the largest state in this directory and the widest-ranging. 195 steakhouses across 87 cities and towns — from a Greek grill house in Astoria to a chophouse in Buffalo, a racetrack institution in Saratoga Springs and a potato-field roadhouse in Sagaponack. Manhattan holds 73, Brooklyn 8, Staten Island 5, the Bronx 4, and Queens 3. The other 102 are spread across 81 towns beyond the five boroughs.

It is also where the American steakhouse was invented, and where the oldest ones are still open.

The New York Ten

1. Peter Luger Steak House (Williamsburg, Brooklyn) — the most imitated steakhouse on earth. Opened in 1887 as Carl Luger’s Cafe, Billiards and Bowling Alley in what was then a German neighborhood in the shadow of the bridge. One order: the dry-aged USDA Prime porterhouse for two, sliced at the table and finished on a tilted plate. Also in Great Neck — and, since 2023, in Las Vegas, the only other city on the planet that has one.
2. Keens Steakhouse (Herald Square) — open since 1885 and the last survivor of the old Herald Square theater district. More than 50,000 clay churchwarden pipes hang from the ceilings, the largest such collection in the world. The signature order is not a steak at all: it is the mutton chop, and Keens sold its one millionth in 1935.
3. Old Homestead Steakhouse (Meatpacking District) — established 1868 at 14th and Ninth, originally the Tidewater Trading Post, and widely held to be the oldest continuously operating steakhouse in the United States. A former dishwasher named Harry Sherry bought the place in the 1940s; his grandsons Greg and Marc run it now.
4. COTE Korean Steakhouse (Flatiron) — Simon Kim’s collision of Korean tabletop grilling and the American chophouse. It has held a Michelin star every year since it opened in 2017, the first Korean steakhouse in the country to earn one, and it is the only Korean steakhouse in New York with its own dry-aging room.
5. Gallaghers Steakhouse (West 52nd) — opened in 1927 as a speakeasy by former Ziegfeld girl Helen Gallagher and the gambler Jack Solomon. Its glass-walled meat locker faces the sidewalk: roughly 2,800 to 3,800 pounds of Prime beef aging 28 to 30 days, in plain view, below 36 degrees.
6. 4 Charles Prime Rib (West Village) — a tiny, dark basement room and quite possibly the hardest reservation in the city. Prime rib is the point.
7. Hawksmoor (Union Square) — the London group’s New York room, in the landmarked former Guardian Life building. British in method, American in beef.
8. Quality Meats (Midtown) — built to look like an old New York butcher shop, and the most consistent modern steakhouse in the neighborhood.
9. Bowery Meat Company (East Village) — the downtown answer to Midtown formality, known for its dry-aged ribeye.
10. Club A Steakhouse (Midtown East) — red leather, low light and an unapologetically old-school room that regulars defend fiercely.

Three New York steakhouses opened before the automobile. All three serve dinner tonight.

The American steakhouse is a New York invention, and the evidence is still trading. Old Homestead opened in 1868, when the Meatpacking District was a literal meatpacking district and the cattle arrived on the hoof. Keens followed in 1885, Peter Luger in 1887. All three are open. None of them has moved.

Keens is the one to understand, because it preserves the part of the story everyone forgets: the steakhouse began as a men’s club with a kitchen attached. Its ceilings still carry more than 50,000 clay churchwarden pipes — the largest collection in the world — because members checked their pipe at the door the way you would check a coat, and the house stored it under their name. The Pipe Club roster eventually ran past 90,000 names, among them Theodore Roosevelt, Babe Ruth and Albert Einstein.

Women were not admitted. In 1905 the actress Lillie Langtry — by then well known as a paramour of the future King Edward VII — took Keens to court for refusing her entry, and won. She arrived in a feathered boa, sat down in the room that had just been forced open to her, and ordered the mutton chop. There is a dining room upstairs named after her, and the mutton chop is still the thing to order: the house sold its one millionth in 1935.

Peter Luger got its break from infrastructure. It opened in 1887 as a German beer-hall-and-billiards room under what was then open sky; when the Williamsburg Bridge opened in December 1903, Manhattan money could suddenly walk across the river, and a neighborhood bowling alley turned into the porterhouse benchmark for the next century. In 2023 it opened its first location outside New York — not in Chicago or Los Angeles, but in Las Vegas.

The fourth of the old guard is Gallaghers, which arrived in 1927 as a Prohibition speakeasy and did something none of the others had: it put the dry-aging room behind glass, facing the sidewalk, so the beef became the advertisement. Nearly every steakhouse in America with a lit meat locker in the window is copying a Broadway speakeasy.

Beyond the five boroughs

Long Island is the densest territory outside Manhattan. Besides Peter Luger in Great Neck, there is Rothmann’s in East Norwich, Jimmy Hays in Island Park, Tellers in a former bank building in Islip, Pace’s in Hauppauge and George Martin’s Strip Steak in Great River.

Out east, Bobby Van’s has anchored Bridgehampton for decades, Old Stove Pub still grills Greek-style in Sagaponack, and Lucky’s covers East Hampton.

In Westchester and the Hudson Valley: Frankie & Johnnie’s in Rye, Peter’s in Eastchester, Hudson Prime in Irvington and Fishkill Prime.

Upstate, 677 Prime is the Albany standard and Buffalo Chophouse the Buffalo one, with Char Steak & Lounge in Rochester and the Red Fox deep in the Adirondacks at Saranac Lake.

Saratoga Springs is a special case — four steakhouses in a town of 30,000, because of the racetrack. Salt & Char sits on Broadway, and Siro’s has stood beside the track since 1945 and opens for a six-week sprint each summer, starting the night before the meet begins. The rest of the year it is dark, so time your visit.

The national chains

New York carries the brands too, and several of them were born here before they were chains. They are dependable, and they are not why you come to New York: The Palm, Smith & Wollensky, Del Frisco’s Double Eagle, Mastro’s, CUT by Wolfgang Puck, Morton’s, Ruth’s Chris, STK, Ocean Prime and BLT Prime.

Browse the state by city: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island and Saratoga Springs.