finally, well done

the table is laden with slabs of beef, trays of oysters, and copper pots of pommes aligot. A waiter in a tux, tossing a Caesar salad. Iceberg’s in the air. Diners grinning at the show. One, a doubting Thomas, cuts into his rib eye, scarlet under char, and wonders, “Is this really rare?” Limbs are limber, eyes shine bright, the Barolo is empty. If Caravaggio were alive today, there is no doubt he would take his talents to a steakhouse. There is no other restaurant that better captures all that is primal, all that drama twixt life and death, all the revelry mankind can summon, all the pleasure mankind can feel, than a steakhouse.

And yet the past few years have not been kind to the American steakhouse. The