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Steaking Out Sacred Ground in Brooklyn
A regular sounds off on Pete Wells’ takedown of Peter Luger
I am honestly not sure I can disaggregate what I feel and what I think about this review. I appreciate that The New York Times’ Pete Wells nods to Peter Luger’s importance and permanence. That’s certainly the case for me — I’ve been to “Luger’s” for more birthdays, goodbyes, and welcome-homes than I can count over the last 40 years. I got my Peter Luger charge card on my 18th birthday. I still have it and I still use it. I’m proud of its low number — I once even got a nod for that from Terry the bartender; really, I did. I have witnesses.
Your bill came in the mail on thick bronze-colored paper. If you were tardy in paying, you got a phone call from Sylvia (or Sadie — I forget ) at “Pehtah Looguhz” who called you “dahlink” and informed you that “we haven’t got yuh check yet” (when I was 18, I always wondered if unheeded calls from Slyvia were followed up by less polite visits from guys with track suits and no necks).
I know that there is no secret number that Wells could have called to get in; it’s always been 387-7400 — I remember when there was no 718 prefix before it. I know that the best time to get someone on the phone for a reservation is around 3:45 p.m., and I remember when the Zagat guidebook’s review said that the neighborhood was so bad that “you should come in a tank.”
The last meal I had at Luger was over the summer, and they absolutely crushed it on every level. They can still bring it. Objectively. And the bacon is still the bacon and there really isn’t anything that tastes like it.
If you don’t know what Luger’s is — and what it isn’t — going in, then that’s on you, pal.
But it’s true, as much as I absolutely hate to admit it, that I have occasionally walked out in the last few years feeling a bit disappointed. It’s expensive, and I’d be lying if I said I thought the steak was always perfect. It isn’t and it should be at the price. But I don’t think Wells is right on balance and I don’t think that the word “scammed” is right here. Sure, if they promised one thing and delivered something else, it’d be like a “bait and switch,” but Peter Luger surely isn’t that…
