Profile

Why Smith & Wollensky made the SteakMap list

It is the only national steakhouse group that dry-ages and hand-carves USDA Prime on premises at every location. Most chains in this price band buy their steaks already portioned; this one keeps a butcher on site.

Beef comes from the top 2 percent graded USDA Prime, is dry-aged up to 28 days, and is cut in house.

The cut to order

The house signature is a 44oz American wagyu bone-in ribeye, hand-seared to finish and carved at the table. It is a plate for two or three people, and the tableside service is a real part of the experience rather than a flourish.

Where the name came from

Alan Stillman — who had already invented T.G.I. Friday’s — opened the first Smith & Wollensky with Ben Benson in 1977, at 49th and Third in Manhattan, in a building that had been Manny Wolf’s Steakhouse.

Neither Smith nor Wollensky was a person. Stillman pulled both names at random out of a New York phone book, one from the first page he opened to and one from the next.

The Burlington room

This location sits on Middlesex Turnpike in Burlington, in the Route 128 technology corridor northwest of Boston. It is a suburban business-dinner room rather than a downtown one, which in practice means easier parking, easier reservations, and the same butchery program as the city locations.