Jump Cut

They're not kidding around when they call their salad a "Caesar the way it should be" ($10). Crunchy, ice-cold romaine was dressed to a T and detailed with translucent waves of Parmigiano Reggiano. Raw oysters (mixed plate of eight) were clean, cold, and fresh. And the smoky, juicy, buttery, wood-fired oysters Rockefeller ($14) with pancetta and spinach were luscious, although I missed the traditional flavor of Pernod.

That wood-fired oven turns out some beautiful stuff, including wild salmon, swordfish, sea bass, and jumbo scampi. As with the steaks, you can pair your fish with a sauce (chimichurri, miso, pineapple tamarind, mango/blood orange barbecue, $2 each). I had the cloyingly sweet miso with my excellent salmon fillet, and I wish I'd skipped it and saved the $2 to tip the valet. A friend ordered morel cognac sauce with her filet mignon ($34 for eight ounces, plus $5 for the sauce; the 12-ounce is $42). All the beef we ate was too good to be true — beautiful marbling on the cowgirl rib eye and the 14-ounce New York strip ($38), both of them wearing charred, caramelized crusts and cooked exactly medium rare. On Sunday, we had prime rib (served Sunday only, $29), and it was a gorgeous pink slab of deliciousness rimmed in lightly browned fat and oozing juice.

A word about the sauces. I've always had a prejudice against charging extra bucks for a dab of chive butter, blue cheese, or wine peppercorn. It reminds me of A.A. Milne's king who keeps pleading for a little butter on his bread. Just a few drippings from the pan, maybe? I should give up this prejudice, I suppose, but it lingers — returning full force when said drippings aren't especially wonderful. At Cut, sauces are served on the side (whoever brought ours out didn't identify which was which); my friend's morel sauce had mushrooms aplenty but was noticeably short on the cognac (you pay an extra surcharge for the truffle butter too, which I doubt contains any real truffles — the smell of truffle oil, used in the potatoes as well, wafts from the kitchen). A small matter, but there's something nickel-and-dimey about this practice that's just on the verge of tacky. Throw in the sauces for free, guys, and I promise to let you upsell me on the wine.

All the sides we ordered were tops (the potatoes and the veg are $10 each). Blue cheese tater tots were crisp without, creamy within, flecked with chives and scented with truffle oil. Divine. Whipped to the consistency of cream: buttermilk mashed potatoes. Perfect. Maple sweet potato purée: like eating dessert, cutting right through the meat's salinity. Gigantic onion rings came stacked in diminishing circles like an infant's toy. Absolutely fabulous.

If I weren't eating to pay the bills, I would have done either the apps or the entrées — because most regular people won't need both. A plate of black pepper Parmesan spaetzel ($12) for instance, a glass of wine, and maybe dessert (the überdelicious cheesecake with its black Oreo crust, or peanut butter pie rich enough to explode your head, are $10) and you'd get out for under $50. As they did at Vertical, Albe and Belluscio are selling hundreds of wines by the glass. They're priced from $8 for Vinum Cellars Rosé to $700 (no, that's not a typo) for a 1997 Schafer Vineyards Select Cabernet. The bottles are a better deal, though. A Ladoucette Pouilly-Fumé I'm fond of is $75 a bottle but $22 per glass. That Shafer Cabernet is $1,050 a bottle. You do the math.

Anyway, to summarize: Food's great. Place is noisy. Sorta expensive. Really crowded. Cool customers. Nice service. Lots of wine. Skip the sauce.