Food & Drink

Join Club for great steak

A grand setting for steak: The glass-and-steel ceiling of the Arlington Club mezzanine recalls the great Concourse of the original Penn Station, which was demolished with the rest of the station in the early 1960s.

A grand setting for steak: The glass-and-steel ceiling of the Arlington Club mezzanine recalls the great Concourse of the original Penn Station, which was demolished with the rest of the station in the early 1960s. (Gabi Porter)

Laurent Tourondel’s massive cote de boeuf for two is Arlington Club’s greatest dish and one of the most unforgettable steaks anywhere.

Laurent Tourondel’s massive cote de boeuf for two is Arlington Club’s greatest dish and one of the most unforgettable steaks anywhere. (Gabi Porter)

Arlington Club is the city’s finest new steakhouse since Minetta Tavern, and the best ever on the Upper East Side. Over the past six weeks, chef/partner Laurent Tourondel’s kitchen served me the grandest quartet of beef cuts I’ve had from the same kitchen. The pleasure of their tissue and pulp lingered after I finished the leftovers I giddily took home.

But the sign in the window also says “sushi,” and that side of the menu isn’t in the league of the rest(Hence the double-star box.) Squishing the twinklers into a single rating would make it seem like it’s really one restaurant — but as at many new megabucks places, it isn’t that simple.

Arlington Club touched down with a roar on shell-shocked, sleepy-by-night Lexington Avenue. Full of sound and fury scarce at civilized establishments nearby, it marries two culinary cultures that might or might not live happily ever after.

It’s a dream-team collaboration on paper. Tourondel famously originated the three-star BLT brand which “reinvented the American steakhouse with French technique.” Now he’s joined up with Tao Group, creators of “vibe dining” and top-grossing venues Tao, Lavo, the Dream Downtown’s Marble Lane — a good steakhouse in its own right — and oodles of clubs.

Of course Tourondel and his former BLT partners messily split after seven years; let’s hope the Tao union lasts at least as long.

Bold and beautiful Arlington Club’s 200 seats fill two levels of what was once awkwardly configured Payard Bistro, now ballooned to noble (and noisy) volume by design studio ICrave.

A barrel-vaulted ceiling of brick and steel arches presides over the ground floor’s round banquettes, walls and trim of reclaimed oak, and artifacts like a 1920s bank clock. The mezzanine has its own stupendous ceiling of glass and steel, echoing the Concourse of the original Penn Station.

A crown-shaped wood and glass installation protrudes like a “War of the Worlds” Martian over the lawless bar area, where mobs mill as if at a Bushwick loft party. Be warned: It can be a madhouse some nights when customers wait, and wait, for seats. And watch out for renegade, spritzing seltzer bottles: “I soaked one of our owners,” confessed one of the house army of friendly servers.

Upper East Side big-spenders thrilled to have Tourondel in their nabe trade funny looks with party-time scene makers drifting on the Tao Group winds. The latter come for salad, sushi, killer cocktails and a wine list with some fine choices under $100.

I even watched carb-phobic young women shun Tourondel’s famously irresistible Gruyere popovers, enriched from the BLT formula with pepper and three kinds of cheese.

A pity they also passed up marvelous starters and sides like a trio of ricotta-filled zucchini blossoms resembling Monet haystacks. Non-steak entrees were strong if familiar: roast chicken ($28) like the one at Brasserie Ruhlmann where Tourondel is also executive chef. Cavatelli in lush ragout of mushrooms — trumpet royale, beech, imikimi, oyster and maiake, if you must know — is a steal for $21.

But OMG, yikes, the steaks! Forget fads for cult-ranched, ultra-lean, grass-fed, Wagyu-style and cuts old enough to qualify for Medicare. Arlington Club’s are all “hand-selected,” richly marbled old-fashioned USDA Prime and rationally 28-day dry-aged.

Served with a choice of condiments they hardly need (go with the house sweet and sour sauce), they’re broiled simply with black pepper and sea salt, seared black around the edges at 1,000 degrees before finishing in the oven. I could live on the crusting alone.

Bone-in filet mignon (16 ounces, $38) mocked the notion that the cut is less flavorful than sirloin. Porterhouse (42 ounces for two, $95) delivered primal, blood-borne flavor without the butter bath which drenches many a pricey cut.

The piece de resistance is cote de boeuf (34 ounces for two, $110), a bone-in rib cut that’s magic in Tourondel’s hands, tender and toothsome by turns and seething with mysterious mineral essences. If your system can take it, spoon marrow from the bone.

But dishes honed to Tao-scene taste didn’t compare. A sweet lobster claw failed to redeem a messy salad of baby kale and rubbery sunchokes. Tough sunchokes at the height of their season?

Colorfully composed sushi rolls run all over the map. Tourondel generously sent out more than we ordered. The easy winner was gently exotic, curried Peekytoe crab with a dash of lemongrass. Osaka-style tuna rolls sparkled on plate and tongue. No faulting bluefin otoro sashimi — but when do you fault bluefin otoro?

Others, though, suffered from too much of one element. Yuzu kosho hammered fluke like a drill. Avocado overwhelmed fish. Dry, tough lobster “tempura” rolls involving yuzu kosho-rolled caviar seemed soldered together.

Desserts ($9-$11) are rich, appropriately sweet but not cloying. Pretend crackling lime millefeuille is lighter than banana cream pie and don’t look back.

Arlington Club brings something new to the Lexington Avenue night: a sidewalk crowd. There’s no velvet rope, but the faces and fashions suggested Lavo-frequenting types.

I couldn’t tell whether they were coming or going. But Tourondel types will be coming back — and staying.