Remember how we warned you about Stephen Starr's new steak house, Steak 954, scheduled to open this month at Lauderdale's new W Hotel? Well, here it is the end of the month, and the place is rolling it out right on schedule: You can call and make your reservation for Thursday's debut dinner if you're so inclined. Just to remind you, Starr is the Philly restaurateur who once compared opening a restaurant to firing the first volleys in a war (The big scary enemy he's aiming at? Restaurant critics). At his 200-plus seat restaurant at the W, he's hauling out his biggest-ass weapons of mass destruction: a jellyfish tank (perfect for disposing of restaurant critic carcasses), a stainless steel bar, garden seating, organic cocktails, and... um... tacos. And, er, sliders. (cough) Caesar salad. Onion soup. Roast chicken. Hash browns. Glazed carrots.
Where does Starr get his ideas, cribbing from his dear old mum's dog-eared index cards? Well, anyway, the chilled asparagus sounds like a real culinary departure from business as usual, right? I was particularly impressed to learn that Starr is offering a $100 Kobe cheese steak, since I'm a Philly girl myself and I sorta get all sniffly and nostalgic when I think about my hometown. And then I started to visualize the kind of douchebag that would pay a C-note for a steak sandwich with foie gras and truffles slathered all over it, and the notion suction-hosed every dewey drop right out of my tear ducts.
Here I was planning to deconstruct Starr's menu -- hoping to get the first shot in while he was still massing his troops. But this menu sort of deconstructs itself, don't it?
Steak 954 at the W Hotel
401 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd.
Fort Lauderdale
954-414-8200
