Kosher Food and Drink

Despite our recent rebranding to Kosher Food and Drink, we like to think our readership still appreciates the finer things in life, to include a good steakhouse. That’s why we’re very pleased to review Mike’s Bistro, a classic kosher Manhattan steakhouse that is in the rarified upper tier of dining experiences.

Mike’s Bistro (127 E 54th St, New York, NY 10022; (212) 799-3911; mikesbistro.com; under OU supervision; meat) is located in the Midtown East part of Manhattan, not so far from Central Park Zoo or Times Square. We were in town for my son’s graduation from the Tikvah Truman Scholars program, and we felt like the day should be capped off by an amazing dinner before we made the long drive home.

Mike’s has been on my “to-visit” list for quite a long time, as it has an impeccable reputation for amazing food and ambience. There were even a couple native New Yorkers at the graduation program who raved about the choice when we mentioned it. The restaurant lives in the $100-$150 per person tier of kosher dining, which is pretty rare outside of the largest Jewish communities.

Finding Mike’s is not hard, and the signage is very obvious from the outside. We elected to walk, which didn’t make your author terribly popular with his kids, but was a very viable strategy in the traffic-heavy Manhattan environs. On the bright side, it was a lovely cool day with just a hint of drizzle, and the loud, enthusiastic National Puerto Rican Day Parade seasoned our journey with the classic NYC diversity story.

Walking in, we were quickly greeted and seated. We were a little diffident walking in because our reservation was for 5PM and the sign on the door indicated they opened at 5:30PM, but I was told that they were pivoting to an earlier opening on Sundays, which was certainly convenient. We were the only people in the restaurant at this point, but more people filtered in over the two hours we were there.

The ambience in the restaurant was top-notch, with dim (but adequate) lighting, tasteful table layout (both in terms of decorations and spacing), and room design that enhanced the mood but didn’t distract. If I were going to nitpick slightly, some of the green-leaf-style barriers seemed slightly out of place, and the music was a bit odd (it sounded like an orchestral version of the Aladdin sound track – which my daughter loved, incidentally).

The waiter quickly brought over water and bread, and intimated that as we were the first people in the restaurant, they had everything and all the food was fresh. For those of you playing at home, at a hundred bucks a plate, everything’s going to be fresh; what they were trying to subtly tell us was that it was going to take a bit for our food to get made. This wasn’t a happy revelation, but let me commend them for opening at 5PM in the first place and warning us that the food was going to be a bit slow coming out, so we could manage the kids’ expectations accordingly.

Ordering took a few minutes, mostly because we had not done a great job of pre-planning our dining choices. The menu (printed on a plain sheet of cardstock – nice touch) is not going to go down as my favorite selection organization scheme. Apparently everything up until the “Dinner” selection is appetizers, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that just by looking at the menu. Maybe I’m an unimaginative traditionalist, but I’m just looking for restaurants to clearly label appetizers as appetizers and mains as mains. I also found the waiter to be slightly aggressive on the drinks and appetizers, albeit, let’s face it, that’s par for course across the industry.

The drinks selection as presented is not huge, albeit they have a full-stocked bar and can prep whatever cocktail you feel like. If you’re looking for bright-colored Instagram pleaser drinks, this is not your restaurant. That’s alright with me.

Service was uniformly excellent throughout our meal, and was at the level you’d expect. Water glasses were kept full, plates were cleared at the right times, and the wait staff clearly was keeping an eye on things. I won’t tell you it’s the best service I’ve had, especially given the food being on the slow side, but it’s pretty far up there. Special kudos on getting us a check in a timely fashion, which seems like a more common pain point than it should be.

We kicked off dinner with a couple of Shirley Temples for the kids, a mint drink of some sort for my wife, the gnocchi, and the beef tartare. The drinks came quickly, the appetizers somewhat less so (see comments above). I’m not a big drinker, so I don’t have any major revelations on the drinks other than the small sips I took came off as pretty competent executions.

The gnocchi and beef tartare, on the other hand, were positively excellent. The gnocchi is made with duck confit, and it was absolutely sumptuous. The texture was perfect, and the confit was cooked to perfection. Similarly, the beef tartare was clearly freshly minced steak (the bright red color was eye-catching), and the chive and seasoning did a terrific job of enhancing that flavor. They also brought out extra crostini when our kids got through it a bit too quickly – nice touch. The plating on both appetizers was top-notch, and some time was clearly put into the presentation.

For mains, we had the braised short ribs, the lamb chops, the fillet steak, and the braised duck leg (which is technically an appetizer, but is enough for me), plus fries (sorry, frittes) on the side. This took a while to show up. Reviews across the table were uniformly exuberant, and I tried a nibble of each.

The braised short ribs were just the right level of tender, but had a nice finish from a sear before braising. I didn’t try the turnip mash, but it was gone by the end of the meal, so I’ll assume it was similarly delightful.

The braised duck leg was also really well-executed (and plated really well – they went out of their way for this when they served it as a main, and I appreciate it). If I were going to be totally critical, it could have been a bit more fall-off-the-bone, but the meat’s texture was excellent, and the skin was crispy. The beets were tender and tasted… well, like beets (I don’t love beets). I found the cherry sauce to be so sweet as to be distracting.

The lamb chops were devoured by my son in short order, and he had two big thumbs up for them. From the bit that I tasted, I would agree. Notably, he also finished nearly everything on the plate except the cauliflower (my wife had it, and she thought it was delicious – very crunchy). The lamb chops were ordered medium (waiter’s recommendation, which seemed sound to me), and were delivered as such.

Finally, the fillet steak… my daughter ordered it medium-rare, and they delivered it just like that. The crust was just right, and the seasoning was spot on. The funny thing about steak is that it’s a lot easier to write about a bad steak than a perfect one. This was more on the perfect side.

The frittes came crunchy and salted, but weren’t particularly exceptional otherwise. Frequent readers know that the author hates unsalted (aka, bland) French fries coming from the kitchen, and was delighted that Mike’s was not amongst the no-salt crowd. I’m not sure if they made the fries themselves or not (they seemed remarkably similar to others I had had), but either way, they were delicious and complemented the other food quite well.

For dessert, we had a chocolate cake pudding truffle and what I guess was a deconstructed Napoleon. There’s no dessert menu – our choices were given to us verbally – so I don’t have any names to refer back to for this. Both items were very good – especially the extra crunch in the truffle bits – but I didn’t think they broke any new ground. Neither was particularly easy to share, which, in my opinion, is something of a mistake – dessert is meant to be shared and enjoyed around the table.

All in, our bill was about $515 for the night, plus tax. This is roughly $130 a person, which is about right for a high-tier kosher steakhouse. Unfortunately, Mike’s Bistro only takes cash tips, so we wound up shorting our waiter somewhat despite what I thought was pretty good service. I’d advocate disclosing this policy up front on the website, because I have to imagine I’m not the only person who doesn’t carry a bunch of cash all the time.

I’m going to sum it up with this: Mike’s Bistro was really good, and it deserves its status as a NYC kosher mainstay, but it wasn’t perfect. Yes, it has terrific service and food. I felt like the menu, tipping policy, and the long-ish wait time for food wasn’t necessarily as fantastic. Admittedly, we are talking about quibbles that would probably be considered great in most restaurants… but when you’re at this price point, the small things become reasonable to notice. It’s not impossible that we just caught them on a bad day, so perhaps you’ll have a better experience.

I look forward to going back, and I would encourage our readers to give them a visit as well. It was a spectacular, memorable meal that capped off a really special day for our family, and I think we’ll be talking about it for a while.