Club Car: A Surf-And-Turf Throwback In New York's McKittrick Hotel
The McKittrick Hotel, located on Manhattan's far west side, is a fascinating place. It's perhaps best known as the home of Sleep No More, an immersive theatrical experience that lets you explore said hotel (which isn't a hotel at all) while living through a fever-dream mashup of Hitchcock and Shakespeare at their most macabre. A playful and vintage-inspired 1930s motif permeates the whole show, and the whole building essentially exists as its own carefully designed, self-contained world. If you want to experience that world without shelling out for tickets to Sleep No More (which you absolutely should still see), you should visit one (or both) of the dining options on the premises: Gallow Green, one of the city's lushest and most intriguing rooftop cocktail bars; and The Club Car, which is currently having a summertime residency in the bar/restaurant space that until recently was home to old-school nightclub The Heath. It's scheduled to last until Labor Day, and it's a dining experience that's completely unique to the city.
The Club Car has been taken over by chefs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, who are perhaps best known for their work with restaurateur Keith McNally; they were the founding co-executive chefs of his Balthazar and Minetta Tavern (Minetta's Black Label Burger was their creation). The space is dark and romantic, with décor inspired by the Grand Central Oyster Bar and a menu inspired by old-school steakhouses, and it's an ideal spot to enjoy the restaurant's only offering: surf and turf.
The $65 prix fixe menu is about as simple as it gets: Your meal starts with crudités and fresh-baked rolls, followed by your choice of soup or salad; then comes a 10-ounce dry-aged boneless rib-eye with your choice of five add-ons: scallops with romesco butter, soft shell crab with ramp butter, broiled lobster with béarnaise on the side, razor clams oreganato, or oxtail and bone marrow. Old Bay-seasoned fries and a daily vegetable are served on the side, and you can choose lemon chiffon cake or chocolate caramel tart for dessert.
On the day we visited at the invitation of the restaurant, we enjoyed a chilled lobster and cauliflower soup, creamy from puréed cauliflower, opulent with big chunks of lobster, and light from the lack of cream. Our steaks were perfectly cooked to medium-rare; one steak was served au poivre-style to complement the generous portion of lobster, the other served with a zippy and umami-rich romesco to complement six nicely-seared scallops. Fries were crisp and easily rivaled those served at Balthazar (which is very high praise); and the day's vegetable, asparagus, was simply grilled. Lemon chiffon cake was light and full of bright lemon flavor, and the chocolate caramel tart was rich and decadent.
It's a filling and fun meal, and the wine list is also worthy of praise; because the menu is so limited, the team worked to find wines that would complement both steak and seafood (no easy feat); the resulting list is heavy on pinot noir and is also the only time I've ever seen Châteauneuf-du-Pape availably by the glass, for $14, no less. There's also a very nice selection of cocktails, including a daily rotating punch.
If this all sounds right up your alley (and it should) we suggest you move fast: It's only available Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, from 5 to 10 p.m., through Labor Day.