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Perry's Steakhouse & Grille

Do we need a little Houston, right this very minute?

By Mike Sutter
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Thursday, December 04, 2008

To walk into Perry's in the Norwood Tower is to believe that the refrain ringing through dining halls across the Capital City is this: What we need in Austin is more of Houston. More designer suits, more tall hair, more leather decor, more money.

Perry's Steakhouse & Grille - the sixth in a chain, with the other five in Houston - is a monument to conspicuous consumption, right down to the preserved old bank vault on the first floor, where you might reserve a table in the safe that once held your 401(k). It's a cruise ship with cathedral ceilings, sculpted fixtures and an opulent curved staircase going up to the lido deck, the better to view the titanic wall of wine and the ocean of tables crewed largely by well-dressed men of a certain age. The walls have a stitched-leather look, and some of the floors are finished in faux alligator, like walking a long line of handbags to the men's room, where a bas relief of the Capitol will make legislators and lobbyists feel at home.

But to judge Perry's only on its Houstontatious downtown restaurant that opened in October is to miss out on something Austin appreciates to its core: Perry's knows its meat. The ginormous smoked pork chop ($27.95) was a tableside carving spectacle, a half-foot-tall, a bronzed butcher's tour of marbled fat, toothy loin and pull-apart ribs. The chop, which without exaggeration could have been called a pork roast for two, was a study in sweet glaze and fireside spice. The leftovers alone were enough to anchor a family dinner the next day.

The butcher's bona fides of the Perry family, which still operates two meat markets in Houston, also came through in the wet- and dry-aged 22-ounce bone-in rib-eye ($41.95). Chosen from a menu of all-prime steaks that includes a 12-ounce filet mignon ($36.95) and a 20-ounce bone-in New York strip ($42.95), the rib-eye was perfectly seared, glistening with butter, seasoned enthusiastically with salt and pepper, but otherwise free of anything to distract from the rich taste of the beef. A separate, institutional-tasting peppercorn sauce sat largely untouched, a waste of $3.

That sauce and so much of what we ordered besides the meat begged the question: How much of the steakhouse experience do we take for granted? The a la carte steaks, the crabcakes, the iceberg wedge, the creamed spinach, the crème brûlée. They're all here at Perry's. But aside from the creamed spinach ($7.95), refreshingly light-handed and baked with a Parmesan crust, our forays outside the stockade were unrewarding. The crabcakes ($15.95 for two) were meaty but overcome by an oily crust and washed in an unremarkable butter sauce, seemingly the same sauce used to dress the scallops ($14.95), which were seared decently but wrapped in droopy bacon. And as much as I enjoyed watching a suited manager with a blingy wristwatch set something on fire right there at the table, the bananas foster for $8.95 failed to rise above its parts: caramelized bananas with a big scoop of Amy's Ice Cream. And the shallow, runny crème brûlée ($7.95) didn't belong in the same restaurant as that monumental pork chop.

Even the saving grace of the meat was imperiled by a waiter who didn't ask my guest how he wanted his rib-eye cooked. When I brought up the question, the guest asked for the chef to make the decision. The chef picked an optimal medium rare with pockets of bloody red. And though the same waiter recommended the private-label Perry's red wine when we asked about wine by the glass, a couple of thirsty carnivores could have used more guidance navigating a wine list that whiplashes from out-of-place white zinfandel to old-school Bordeaux powerhouses.

At Perry's, maybe less would be more: less of the typical menu trappings that make an expense-account steakhouse seem dated, more focus on fewer things done exceptionally well - in short, more of the butcher's practical aesthetic applied to the whole steakhouse experience.

msutter@statesman.com; 912-5902

Perry's Steakhouse & Grille

114 W. Seventh St. 474-6300,

www.perrysrestaurants.com

Hours: 4 to 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Prices: Appetizers: $11-$16. Soups and salads: $7-$9. Entrees: $20-$43. Desserts: $8-$9.

At the bar: Full bar service. The wine list - divided into old- and new-world choices, a 'bizarre and exciting blends' section, plus a pricier 'Sommelier's Reserve' category - ranges from Beringer white zinfandel to a $3,800 Chateau Ausone '95 and includes a Perry's private label Sonoma white and red and a handful of half-bottles and splits. By-the-glass prices range from $7 to $24.

Wheelchair access: First floor.