July 24--Why does Chicago have so many steakhouses? Because people go to steakhouses.
Chicago opens a couple of new steakhouses each year, it seems, and just about all of them find large, free-spending audiences. In the last couple of years, I can think of only two notable steakhouse closings: Carmichael's, which might have been a little too far from the city's center to attract the customers it wanted; and Keefer's, which was purchased by the Chicago Cut owners and converted to C Chicago, which is essentially a steakhouse with gills.
And why are steakhouses so popular? Well, there's America's love affair with beef, certainly, and steakhouses are the ideal matchmakers for that. Another reason, I suspect, is that people understand steakhouses. When it comes to just about any other restaurant, there are conceptual nuances to be grasped, questions to be answered: Is the Italian restaurant pasta-heavy, seafood-centric or regionally focused? Is X restaurant an American restaurant with Mediterranean influences, or a Mediterranean restaurant with American ones? Bistro French or fancy French? A new restaurant in Chicago offers a mac-and-cheese made with spaetzle, fontina and bacon; try labeling that one.
When you say, "Let's go to a steakhouse," there are no follow-up questions.
Which brings us to Prime Provisions, which opened May 2 on the southwest corner of LaSalle Street and Wacker Drive, across the river from the redoubtable Chicago Cut steakhouse and River Roast. It's part of the DineAmic Group, up until now known for pubby/clubby sports bars (Bull Bear, Public House) and ambitious Italian restaurants (Siena Tavern and the just-opened Bar Siena).
"We've wanted to do steak forever," said David Rekhson, one of DineAmic's founders and principals. "Chicago is probably the best steakhouse city in the world; it's part of its history. So creating a steakhouse made sense to us."
If you're going to create yet another steakhouse, you might as well do it right. In the matters that count, Prime Provisions is done absolutely right.
The two-story restaurant, its retro-classic touches bordering on steampunk at times, brings in its Black Angus beef from Creekstone Farms in Kansas. An on-premise aging room (visible from the dining room) dry-ages most of the meat for 40 days, and the aged meat is butchered in-house as well. Kosher salt and black pepper are the only seasonings the steaks see between the cutting room and the 1,200-degree broiler.
The menu touts the restaurant's "Never Ever" policy, promising that the beef is free of antibiotics and growth hormones, raised on organic feed, given extra room to graze and harvested humanely. That ethos extends to the produce, cheese and dairy, right down to the grass-fed butter. "There are great steakhouses in the city," Rekhson said, "but not all are bringing that farm-to-table, artisanal element. We always source very natural ingredients."
Steaks are finished with a dab of butter and served on incredibly hot plates; that latter touch is one that doesn't resonate with me; cutting a steak on a super-heated plate is like working near an open flame. Perhaps sensing my trepidation, my waiter offered to replate the meat on a dish that was merely warm, an offer I gratefully accepted. I suggest you request the same accommodation.
Whatever the temperature on the plate, the meat on top of the plate is going to make you very, very happy. My visits yielded an excellent roasted, double-cut prime rib with reduced jus (it won't supplant my absolute favorite, at Chicago Cut, but it's pretty close), a terrific bone-in rib-eye, massive double-cut lamb chops and my favorite, a dry-aged Kansas City steak, sliced off the bone, whose deep, beefy tang was the stuff of dreams.
Alternate main courses include salmon, yellowfin and crab legs -- the holy trinity of steakhouse seafood -- augmented with a day's catch that might catch your attention, but the selection lacks imagination. I would save seafood for the opening course.
Impressive presentation distinguishes the tuna tartare; tuna, gently mixed with a nice hit of tarragon, is topped with citrus creme fraiche and a quail egg, while the accompaniments (shallots, capers, cornichons, parsley) are minced and laid in finger-width lines radiating from the chopped-tuna hub. There's also a seriously good crab and lobster cake, generous with claw and knuckle meat and containing just enough breadcrumbs to yield a crispy exterior. A lobster and avocado salad is bathed in a very rich and creamy dressing; spa food it isn't.
For true indulgence, however, start with the bacon. "Thick cut" doesn't adequately describe this inch-deep slab of crisped and meaty pork belly, crusted with black pepper and a maple-chili glaze and served with a smear of bittersweet chocolate sauce. Give me this, some monkey bread (slightly over-chewy sometimes, but it's getting better) and one of the classic bar cocktails (P makes an excellent Old Fashioned), and I'd be set for the evening.
Side dishes are called "Escorts," probably because they put a big smile on your face and it's inadvisable to bring them home. The "properly whipped potatoes" are appropriately named, bolstered with sour cream and butter and topped with a broiled panko-horseradish crust. The regular baked potato is massive, fortified with Hook's aged cheddar (a very good Wisconsin cheese) and bacon chunks; the sweet potato, topped with bruleed sugar, Vietnamese cinnamon and cajeta (goat-milk caramel) butter, is a stealth dessert.
Ah, dessert. Amy Arnold, the pastry chef who oversees the sweets for all the DineAmic properties, offers a tempting list, including an individual banana-cream pie with caramel and dehydrated banana chips, and a tequila-lime icebox cake that's kind of a vertical Key lime pie.
The star dessert, however, is innocently named "tableside s'mores" and arrives as a large chocolate sphere on a bed of graham-cracker soil and a smear of chocolate-marshmallow sauce. At tableside, hot chocolate sauce is poured over the sphere, melting it and releasing the campfire smoke trapped within. When the smoke clears, more chocolate, ice cream and marshmallow are revealed. Very few desserts are this entertaining.
Service was exemplary on my first visit and got better on subsequent trips, but it was clear by the second visit that the staff had spotted me.
There's a sheltered outdoor-dining area with comfortable furniture (still white-tablecloth) and city views; also outdoors is a cigar lounge of sorts, a sequestered area where one can choose from nearly a dozen stogies, $14 and up. You can't get food in the cigar area, but you can pull off the steak-cigar-cognac trifecta if you're willing to relocate once or twice.
Prime Provisions
222 N. LaSalle St.
312-726-7777
www.primeandprovisions.com
Tribune rating: Three stars
Open: Dinner Monday to Sunday, lunch Monday to Friday
Prices: Entrees $29-$72
Credit cards: A, DC, DS, M, V
Reservations: Strongly recommended
Noise: Conversation-friendly
Other: Wheelchair accessible; valet parking
Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
