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7Square is located in the small Time Hotel on 49th Street, and before it was a chophouse, it was a struggling gourmet establishment serving high-minded Continental creations by the Lespinasse-trained chef Shane McBride. Mr. McBride is still in the kitchen, but now he’s turning out highbrow chophouse fare, like lettuce wedges with feta cheese, salmon crusted in gingersnaps, and short ribs braised in root beer. To accentuate this nouvelle workaday theme, the menus are encased in corrugated cardboard, and the small room has been decorated with swooping brown wood installations, which make it look like a swanky cafeteria designed for hip, mid-level executives at, say, UPS. Before you get to the steak, there’s an interesting appetizer of artisanal hams (duck ham, wild boar), and a surprisingly nice “dirty rice” risotto, spiked with duck confit and andouille sausage. Among the entrées, the short ribs are Lespinasse quality, even if the root beer makes them taste a little too much like a candy bar, and the fat, well-seared veal chop with wild mushrooms is unlike anything you’ll find at any cafeteria run by UPS. The Colorado lamb chops are double cut, and garnished, not unpleasantly, with sweet raisins. The beloved rib eye comes from Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Maine and is marbled with the kind of corn-fed fattiness that old- fashioned carnivores covet. The side dishes are okay (nicely caramelized Brussels sprouts, tasty macaroni and cheese), but if you’re on your way to the theater, forgo the desserts (Frankenstein-size banana fritters, a gold-leaf-flecked chocolate “Square Ding”), which are clunky and uneven. — Adam Platt

The wine list is modestly priced, even for a modest chophouse, and rigorously American.

Dirty-rice risotto, rib chop, chocolate “Square Ding.”

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New York Magazine Reviews

• Adam Platt's Full Review (12/11/06)