The Block, the House, the Pipes
West 36th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, on the Garment District side of Broadway, holds Keens Steakhouse at number 72. The building is a five-storey 1880s brick row house, narrow, gas-lamp era. The restaurant opened in 1885 as a chop house attached to the Lambs Club theatrical society. Albert Keen, an English-born actor turned restaurateur, ran it as part of the Lambs until 1885, then took over the lease and gave the place his name. The chop house has continuously operated at the same address since.
The defining feature of the interior, visible the moment you enter, is the ceiling. Every inch of every room is covered with long-stemmed clay pipes — churchwarden pipes — racked overhead like wooden slats. The estimated count is 90,000 individual pipes. Members of the Pipe Club at Keens, founded with the restaurant in 1885, would smoke their personal pipe at the bar, return it to a numbered rack, and find it there next visit. Members historically included Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Babe Ruth, J.P. Morgan, Will Rogers, Albert Einstein, Stanford White, and the actresses Lillie Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt (Bernhardt was admitted as a member in 1905 after she sued for the right to smoke; her pipe is still on the wall). The smoking is gone since the 2002 NYC ordinance. The pipes remain.
The Mutton Chop
Mutton — meat from an adult sheep over two years old, distinct from lamb — has been almost entirely displaced from American restaurant menus since the 1950s. Keens is the last serious American chop house that still serves it. The Keens Mutton Chop weighs 26 ounces (almost two pounds), is a saddle cut (two ribs and the loin), is dry-aged in the restaurant's own cellars for 21 days, and is roasted whole, sliced to order at the table. The exterior is a deep mahogany crust; the interior is medium-rare, pink, tender enough to cut with a butter knife. The flavor is markedly stronger than lamb and noticeably stronger than beef — gamier, denser, almost smoky.
The Mutton Chop costs $79 on the dinner menu and serves one person comfortably with leftovers for breakfast. It is the dish that Keens is known for, the dish that the New York Times has reviewed and the New Yorker has profiled, and the dish that essentially no other restaurant in the United States offers at this size or quality. If you have not eaten mutton, this is the place. If you have, this is the place.
What Else Is on the Menu
The dry-aged steaks — Porterhouse for two ($120 a person), bone-in ribeye, sirloin — are USDA Prime cuts from the same dry-age cellar as the mutton and would carry any other steakhouse on their own. They are excellent. They are not, at Keens, the reason to be there. The starter to order is the crab cake ($24, lump meat, almost no filler); the side to order is the creamed spinach ($14, a Keens recipe almost unchanged since the 1920s); the second side to consider is the hashed brown potatoes.
The wine list runs 350 bottles, weighted to Bordeaux and California cabernet, with the unusual addition of a deep Madeira and Port section — Keens stocks bottles back to the 1860s and will, on request, pour two-ounce tastes from rare verticals for $20 to $200. The bar program, run since the 1980s by the same maître d', offers a single-malt Scotch selection of 200 bottles including a Macallan 1926 ($1,800 a pour) that is essentially the bar's framed centerpiece. Most diners order the bar's classic Sazerac or a Martini and leave the Macallan to the framed-photo crowd.
Where to Sit, and When
Keens has five dining rooms across two floors. The Bull Moose Room (named for Roosevelt's 1912 third party, on the first floor) is the most photographed — wood-panelled, gas-lamp lit, oil portraits of New York's nineteenth-century theatrical and political elite on the walls. The Lambs Room is the second-floor private dining hall, used for groups of 12 to 60 and worth requesting if you have a group. The Lillie Langtry Room is the smallest, holds eight, and is the right room for a date or a small celebration.
The bar at Keens — the long mahogany counter directly off the front door — is the move for a solo diner or a couple without a reservation. The bar accepts walk-ins, serves the full dinner menu, has the same pipe-covered ceiling as the dining rooms, and runs the most reliable Sazerac in midtown. Best window for a walk-in bar seat: 5 to 6 p.m. weekdays (pre-theatre crowd has not arrived) or 9 to 10 p.m. (post-theatre crowd has eaten). On any Friday or Saturday after 7, the bar fills to capacity.
How to Get a Reservation
Keens books on OpenTable and on direct phone reservation (212-947-3636). The phone is the better path: the maître d' has held the desk since 2002 and will, on request, walk you through table options and dietary considerations. Reservations open 30 days in advance for dinner and 14 days for lunch. Friday and Saturday dinner books out by the seven-day mark; Tuesday and Wednesday dinner are available within 48 hours. Lunch (Tue–Fri only, 11:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) is the underrated slot — a full Mutton Chop, no crowd, sun through the front windows, and a steakhouse lunch from the 1885 menu for $79.
Dress code: jackets requested for men in the dining rooms; jacket optional at the bar. The restaurant will not turn you away in business casual, but the room is wood-panelled and the regulars wear suits. Children allowed but not built for; the place is a serious chop house, not a family restaurant. Service is by waiters who have, in many cases, worked at Keens for thirty years. Tip well.
How to Time the Evening
The clean Keens evening: 6:30 p.m. reservation. Cocktail at the bar at 6:00 (Sazerac or a Martini, $18). Sit at 6:30 in the Bull Moose Room. Order the crab cake to start, the Mutton Chop, creamed spinach and hashed browns to share. Bottle of California cabernet ($90 for the right one — ask the sommelier). Madeira tasting at the end (two ounces, $20). Walk out at 9, full and warm and slightly drunk, into the Garment District at night. Ten-block walk down Sixth Avenue to Bryant Park for the after-dinner walk.
Total dinner spend per person: roughly $180 with wine and tip. The Mutton Chop alone is the cleanest single dish to spend that on in midtown — there is no other restaurant in the United States that serves it at this size or quality, and the room around it has been there since 1885.
How to Actually Get There
The B, D, F, M, N, Q, R, W trains to 34th Street-Herald Square let you out two blocks east; the 1, 2, 3 to 34th Street-Penn Station is three blocks west; the 7 to Times Square-42nd Street is six blocks north. From Penn Station the walk is six minutes. From Grand Central the walk is fifteen minutes east-west across midtown. The closest crosstown bus is the M34/M34A on 34th Street, two blocks south.
Driving is not the move; the Garment District has no available street parking and the closest paid garage is on Broadway between 36th and 37th, $35 for the dinner window. Take the train.
Practical notes
- Where: Keens Steakhouse, 72 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018.
- When: Lunch Tue–Fri 11:45 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Dinner Mon–Fri 5–10 p.m., Sat 5–10:30 p.m., Sun 5–9 p.m.
- Order: The Mutton Chop ($79). Creamed spinach. Hashed browns. Sazerac at the bar to start.
- Reservations: OpenTable or call 212-947-3636. Books 30 days out. Fri/Sat dinner fills first.
- Dress: jackets requested for men in the dining rooms; relaxed at the bar.
- Getting there: B/D/F/M/N/Q/R/W to 34th-Herald Square or 1/2/3 to 34th-Penn Station.
- Walk-in option: the bar (full menu, ceiling of pipes, best for solo dining 5–6 p.m. or 9–10 p.m.).
The point
Most New York restaurants that have been open since 1885 are open in the way museums are open — preserved but no longer alive. Keens has been continuously operating for 140 years and is, on any given Tuesday, still serving the same Mutton Chop that Theodore Roosevelt ate, in the same room he ate it, under the same pipe he smoked. The ceiling is the largest collection of clay pipes in the world. The mutton is the last serious mutton in American restaurant cooking. The room is the most preserved late-nineteenth-century chop house in the city. Pull up a chair. Order the chop.
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Sources consulted: keens.com · en.wikipedia.org · opentable.com · nycgo.com
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