A few years ago I was writing a blog about a prominent architect and urban planner who had been the Designer for a number of projects that I greatly admired. We had met through a mutual friend, and had spoken quite a bit at events and evenings out, but when I am writing a blog post I always like to meet with people in person with a focus on them and their work if I can. When I asked if there was a time and place he would like to meet, he suggested that we have lunch at Gallagher's Steak House, a place I had always seen but never walked into. We met there that day and ever after I have always fondly remembered not only our wonderful afternoon conversation together, but the wonderful time we had at that wonderful restaurant.
Gallagher's has a history in New York City, and from the moment you walk into the front door and past the rows of perfectly dry aging beef in the windows in the hallway that leads up to the main part of the restaurant you know you're in a very special place. Each person who greets you seems to know you by name and to have an innate sense of how to treat everyone like a very well respected and well loved family member who is celebrating a very special occasion. Every day at Gallagher's is a special one, and I would have thought that it was only because I was with someone who was a well known and well loved regular there, but when I returned again with another friend we had an equally wonderful time.
In a restaurant of this caliber it is expected that the food would be excellent, but Gallagher's is even more than that. The meals that I have had there are memorable not only because of the wonderful staff who make every moment fun and enjoyable, but because the food itself is carefully made and served in a way that only the best meals are. Each choice on the menu is so wonderful that it's hard to choose, but in a place that takes such great care of its customers every choice is the right one.
On a recent lunch I chose the Caesar salad, the steak and the cheesecake with strawberries. As with everything at Gallager's each choice was exactly what I wanted and was served exactly as I wanted it. Gallagher's is one of those rare places where it's so fully booked that it's hard to get a reservation but where the staff and Chefs care so much about the customers that everyone is made to feel as if their experience is the most important one. In a place as beautifully old New York as this one, it's refreshing to find a seat at a table where even if you're the new kid on the block they'll welcome you and invite you to learn what the real New York that everyone always dreams of is all about.
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