I made a point of inviting women along on my trips to Quality Meats, but invariably we were surrounded by hordes of gentlemen making merry in their charcoal-colored suits. They conferred together in pairs or gathered at big long tables for raucous, expense-account-fueled feasts. Desserts are an afterthought at most prominent steakhouses, and that seems to be the case here too. I can’t quite remember what I ate, what I did, or even where I was after ingesting my big dinosaur rib chop, but I have dim recollections of the warm apple pie, which is not an apple pie at all but a bowl of stewed apples, with a random disc of crust slapped on top. The Key-lime tart is constructed in the same manner but contains enough of a sugar-and-tart-lime flavor to blast through even the foggiest food coma. The crumbly rocky-road tart has a similar effect, and so do the house ice creams, which come in designer flavors, like “coffee and doughnuts.” You can get these by the pint, and you may just want to. This is a steakhouse, after all, and daintiness has its limits.

QUALITY MEATS
Address: 57 W. 58th St., nr. Sixth Ave. 212-371-7777
Hours: Dinner, daily, 5 to 11:30 p.m.
Prices: Appetizers, $9 to $19. Entrées, $21 to $55.
Ideal Meal: Steak tartare, roast pork with apricots (for two), crispy potatoes or buttered edamame, ice cream.
Note: The house steak sauce is a wan facsimile of the one Peter Luger’s made famous. Unlike at Luger’s, it’s preciously mixed tableside, from jars of artisanal ingredients lugged around the dining room in an oak box.
Scratchpad: Three stars for the room, and three stars for the suckling pig. But this is a steakhouse, and the steak is good, not great.

Related:

• Archive: “Restaurant Review”
• Articles by Adam Platt
• Table of Contents: Jun 5, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!