“Steak” your claim to the best meal bargain in town, where eight ounces of ridiculously tasty, boneless sirloin — plus pyramids of unlimited crunchy french fries and a sparkling, mustard-dressed, walnut-sprinkled green salad — costs all of $34.95.
If you’re fed up with restaurants where it takes forever to order, Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecôte is for you. The name’s almost longer than the “menu” which has exactly one main dish — sirloin — that’s served any of four ways (blue, rare, medium and well; no in-betweens allowed).
Paris-born Le Relais first opened in Manhattan in 2009, only to close two years ago as a victim of the pandemic. Now it’s back, at 155 E. 54th St., in a part-bistro, part-diner setting with 108 seats, hexagonal floor tiles, colorful floral arrangements and Venetian wall paintings. (The first Le Relais in Paris opened in 1959 at a former Italian restaurant space and the name stuck.)
Ease of ordering is a rare luxury these days, especially in Midtown — where returning employees don’t have hours on end to kill outside the office.
At most places, menus are so barnacled with small bites, starters, main dishes, sushi options, sides and ever-popular “small plates” that you need a lawyer to decipher them — and a patient server to field your queries, e.g., “Is the jumbo shrimp cocktail appetizer jumbo enough for a main course?”
No such research is needed at Le Relais de Venise. There’s no sharing allowed nor should there be at such low prices
Midtown eaters are so starved for simplicity that Wednesday’s opening-day lunch from Chef Shaun MacMahon was merely packed — while dinner was a full-scale mob scene as customers lined up outside and in the vestibule (no reservations are taken).
Pauline Godillot, the granddaughter of Le Relais founder Paul Gineste de Saurs, who owns the one in Paris, roamed the floor, happy to answer questions. But she wouldn’t reveal what’s in the “famous” house steak sauce.
“Even I’m not allowed to know,” our lunch-hour waitress cheerfully said. The manager, who is also in the dark, could only say: “We receive it from France and add butter.”
Some guests have claimed to taste chicken liver; but my dining companion and I know mustard when we taste it. The brownish-green sauce, whatever it’s made from, lends the meat a sweet, pungent kick.
Of course, the grilled, boneless beef — farmed in the Midwest and butchered in Kansas — is the main event. Each 8-ounce portion of sliced steak, taken from the rib area, comes to the table in two half-servings.
This shtick is supposedly to keep the second portion warm on a heated chafing dish, and it does lend the meal an elegant touch. But it’s just as likely necessary because the tables and plates are too small to hold so much food at once.
I had the entrecôte both “rare,” which was more accurately medium-rare, and “medium,” which I’d describe as medium-rare-plus. The beef was slightly chewy but tender with a pleasantly smoky, mineral-rich flavor.
Look — the meat wasn’t quite in the league of Laurent Tourondel’s one-choice-only Skirt Steak in Flatiron, but it’s $10 cheaper. And Le Relais is more civilized than Skirt Steak’s ears- and nerves-shattering noise box.
Le Relais also offers inexpensive red and white wine and fun, house-made desserts like a towering vacherin for $10.95. But you might not have room for it after the other “simple” pleasures.
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