The delicious porterhouse steak for two weighs in at a hefty 40 ounces—and $125 (Gabi Porter)
When the Bill’s Food & Drink waiter displayed a boxed set of knives for me to choose from, I noted that the blades looked exactly the same— only the handles had different colors. So how should I decide?
“The red one goes with your tie,” he suggested.
His humor took the edge off the shtick. Didn’t goofy knife presentations die with Alain Ducasse’s Essex House fiasco? The knives at Bill’s are too small to boot—mine barely penetrated a leathery “bacon chop.”
Pardon my rusty blade: Bold-face- and babe-magnet chef John DeLucie has launched one damned fine, gorgeous newplace. It boasts a strong, slightly modernized classicAmerican menu and a winning floor crew. Yet eerie off notes butt in. What’s with the knives, the weird wine, the rogue sea urchin?
Bill’s Gay ’90s, which held down the three-level space for 88 years, is gone; DeLucie and his Crown Hospitality Group Partners suavely transformed the old-fashioned former speakeasy into a modern old-fashioned chophouse.
Private club-classy, it’s without the snoots of DeLucie’s uptown Crown or the chaos of The Lion downtown. The democratic reservations policy yields a category-killer crowd: Henry Kravis at one table, a beauty youmet last summer in the Hamptons at another, suburban soccer moms at the next.
The ground-floor bar still has a piano. The second-floor dining room looks like it’s been there forever but it’s almost all new. (The third floor’s for private events.) Bill’s Gay ’90s’ selfdescribed “time warp” of memorabilia was swept away for a chandelierlit, Lionand Crownlike trove of fresh memorabilia: prints, framed oils, maps, mirrors, vintage photos.
Horned and antlered beasts festooned about the 19th-century townhouse’s original beams and bones lend a wild kingdome whiff. White tablecloths soften the din; draperied windows over the street evoke the imagined past.
Executive chef Jason Hall’s menu evokes the present toowell: The proteinheavy lineup blurs with those at Arlington Club and the Beatrice Inn. But Bill’s offers DeLucie’s most compelling food to date.
Not all of it’s expensive: Even at dinner, Tuscan kale soup (ribbollita) is just $10, ruggedly rustic with beans, carrots and peanuts. Cotechinostyle pork sausage ($16) is recast as a lush meatball wrapped in caul fat and sage.
I hope DeLucie opens an Italian place. His assertive pasta is typified by house-made tagliatelle drenched in goat and lamb ragu for $19. How long can marinated hanger steak salad— 10 ounces remarkably tender for an often sinewy cut —remain $14? On the other hand, while Nantucket Bay scallops were luscious, did I really countamere halfdozen for $37?
Rib roast ($28) compactedamosaic of neighborhoods in 10 boneless ounces—the beef distributed through zip codes pink and brown, fatty and lean, bare and crusted, all quickening to the spark of creamy horseradish. This is what youwant to eat when low December sun teases through the curtains.
Creekstone Farms 35-day dryaged porterhouse for two weighs in at 40 ounces —and $125. The marbled mammoth’s sirloin portion comes sliced Peter Lugerstyle, garnished with herbed horseradish lardo in a pool of thick but allegedly butterfree redwine bordelaise. Confounding expectations, the filet seemed deeper-flavored than the sirloin—proof that any steak can surprise you.
But some choices didn’t come close. Oozy sea urchin must have drifted into amessy seafood/shellfish salad ($15) by mistake. “Jumbo” prawns ($18) flopped even by shrimp cocktail standards. Uprightaligned, nearfrozen crudités ($16)—carrots, turnips, beets and cucumbers— conveyed not the garden, but only the ice onwhich they stood.
The most shrill note, though, is wine by the glass, all “biodynamic” and ranging from mediocre to vile. In a place like this?
The wine director encouraged us to taste 2002 Coturri Lost Creek (Sonoma) Pinot Noir. When we cringed over the sedimentfilled swill packing a 15.2 percent alcohol content, she declared it was their “best seller.” Really! It’s since been dropped by the glass although masochists can have it by the bottle.
Desserts sweet, sparkling and creamy restore order, particularly single malt scotch pudding. Count on it to provide whatever intoxication you missed— no gagging required.
scuozzo@nypost.com