Finally, some positive news on the economic front that even Wall Street brokers can sink their teeth into: You don’t have to spend $50 or $100 for a lavish lunch anymore in the Big Apple.
That’s because the venerable Old Homestead Steakhouse in Manhattan’s fashionable Meatpacking District is starting a whole new trend in lunchtime dining: a complete lunch that sounds and tastes like a million bucks, but costs only $22.
At the center of this mouth-watering, recession-busting $22 “Burger Diamonds” lunch is the troika of Old Homestead’s beef royalty: a Kobe burger, a filet mignon burger and a sirloin burger, totaling over a half pound of beef, each freshly ground upon order (the only thing fresher would be the cow sitting at your table), hand formed, grilled, served on brioche buns, heaping with distinct gourmet toppings, and accompanied by a Caesar salad, homemade tater tots, secret recipe chipotle ketchup, and choice of a glass of California chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon, or a frothy glass of domestic tap beer.
“We’re giving people a break in these tough economic times, a lavish lunch pleasing to the palate and the pocket,” said Marc Sherry, a co-owner of New York’s longest continually operating steakhouse with the world-famous, life-size cow perched on the entrance’s two-story marquee.
These aren’t just any diamonds in the rough: a Kobe burger, from pampered hand-massaged, liquor mash-fed cows and velvety burst-in-your-mouth flavor, smothered with caramelized Vidalia onions and Kobe bacon; filet mignon burger, the luscious aristocrat of beef topped with a crispy onion ring and white truffle porcini aioli, and sirloin burger, from prime aged beef, drenched with aged Vermont cheddar.
“It’s Fourth of July on your taste buds, and you’ll still have money left for a taxi back to your office, hotel or apartment, and for breakfast and lunch the next day,” Sherry said. “Don’t waste time trying to find a better lunch value because it doesn’t exist anywhere else in New York.”
Whether you’re Wall Street or Main Street, a stockbroker or retail clerk, or a tourist from Japan, the U.K., Nebraska or Boston, Sherry calls it the perfect antidote to plummeting stocks, the European financial crisis and high gas prices. If you can’t survive an afternoon without the latest news on the market or President Obama’s jobs plan, the restaurant will seat you in the third-floor dining room with a big-screen television tuned into a financial news station.
Old Homestead (56 Ninth Ave. between 14th-15th St.) serves the $22 “Burger Diamonds” lunch 12:00-4:00 p.m. weekdays and 1:00-4:00 p.m. weekends. Reservations, 212-242-9040. Established in 1868, Old Homestead also operates at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, NJ, and will be opening this winter at Caesars Palace Las Vegas.