Where We’re Eating: M. Wells Steakhouse

Wells Steakhouse has a menu item called “Caviar Sandwich,” and it is actually, literally, a caviar sandwich. Two inch-thick slices of buttered brioche bookend a modest smear of butter and a massive amount of sturgeon roe that’s been compressed into a dense, extravagant square that resembles nothing so much as a black, briny slice of cheese, a Kraft single for the czar.

I ordered the caviar sandwich for two reasons. The first: Caviar is a weakness of mine, as are sandwiches. The second, more weighty: It was my birthday.

Wells Steakhouse has a menu made for birthdays—or anniversaries, divorces, big raises, or new posts. With caviar, foie gras, butter, and cream at every turn, the restaurant specializes in celebration fare, not meant for everyday eating.

Beside the caviar sandwich, we kicked things off with geoduck “a la peacock”—thin-sliced crudo surrounded by a vibrant fan of radish—and an iceberg wedge that approached a platonic ideal of salty bacon and rich buttermilk dressing, cleverly pushing the salad’s high-low appeal by skipping tomato in favor of sweet-savory shards of what turned out to be dehydrated ketchup. That was followed by an assault: Dense pretzel rolls with a cellar of violently spicy mustard; French onion soup enriched with bone marrow, with an additional marrowbone sticking up through the broiled cheese like a meaty periscope; a dish of absurdly cream-laden mashed potatoes, topped with root vegetables, topped with black truffles; and an order of two glistening, foie gras-stuffed gnocchi. Wells Steakhouse, a mood that’s equal parts nonchalance and ostentation.

The restaurant nods to the classic steakhouse format—blood-red walls, masculine materials like wood and metal and leather—but the space is informal, a warehouse of a room that doesn’t try to hide its previous life as an auto body shop. It felt strange—but not at all wrong—to be eating such a refined and toffee-nosed dessert against the backdrop of an open kitchen, all fire and fierceness and, unexpectedly, flapping fish. About that: Much has been made in the press of the trough full of live trout that holds pride of place just inside the kitchen area (order the Truine au Bleu as your main course and you’ll see a chef reach in, grab one, kill it, and turn it into your dinner) and maybe that’s with good reason.

In short, a perfect reflection of the restaurant itself, it’s a weird, somewhat unnecessary, entirely appealing, ultimately quite brilliant thing—it is. Wells Steakhouse 43-15 Crescent Street Long Island City, New York 11101 718/786-9060 The post Where We’re Eating: M.