Keefer's Restaurant - Miss Chicago Steakhouse for January

Yeah, I've driven by this place about 1,000,000 times.  Never knew it was there.

 

Well, here we are at the second of my reviews of Chicago Steakhouses.  I hope you enjoyed my review of Joe's.  Today's topic is Keefer's, located at 20 West Kinzie (at Dearborn), in the River North area, directly across the street from Harry Caray's.  Once you see it, you say "Shit, I've seen that place a million times, but never gone in....that's a steak place?  Really?  Maybe I should stop in...."

Amy and I got reservations there for New Year's Eve at 6 p.m.  Yeah, boring time, but I'm not really hip with being out all night on New Year's.  I prefer a quiet evening at home, or with friends.  Since I was doing this series, I decided that maybe this year we should go out. 

 

For the record:  one of the places I was most looking forward to was Keefer's.  I had read many great things about it, especially about the steaks, and I was really looking forward to it. 

Also:  as promised, every photo in this post with the exception of the one of the steak was taken by me (or in the case of Amy and me at the end - by the waiter).   

Romantic Christmas dining

The facade is a mixture of chrome and glass.  It's attached to the Amalfi hotel, and it definitely has a hip feel when you approach it.  Upon entering, we were greeted by the owner, Glenn Keefer, who works the Maitre d' station.  He welcomed us to the restaurant, and got us to our table immediately.  Architecturally, the restaurant is a circle with two wings built off of it.  It feels small when you are sitting down, but a good look around tells you the place isn't small.  I liked that.  It felt private while still being a place capable of seating a bunch of hungry folks. 

We were seated in the bar area, which has a curved glass curtain wall with raised platform booths overlooking Dearborn St.  The place had been decorated for Christmas very tastefully.  There were balloons around for New Year's.  The wood is cherry, and there's lots of it.  The two "wings" of the restaurant feature a bunch of old radios on the shelves, owing to investors Larry Wert's and Jimmy de Castro's ties to Chicago radio.  Surprisingly, for a bar area, I didn't feel like we were eating in the bar.  Yes, there was a parade of people through the place, but again, it just felt so intimate, it didn't really affect me. 

I really don't think the water tasted
any better, but it's a nice presentation.

Service at Keefer's is very attentive.  As soon as we were seated, a waiter brought a hand blown blue bottle of cold water and two hand blown blue glasses.  Amy said they made the water taste better.  I don't know if I concur with that assessment, but it was a very nice touch.  We were also presented with a small basket of breads, including a pretzel roll that is....delicious.  I did have one quibble early on in the meal.  As a non-drinker, it is very annoying to occasionally get the grunt, or sigh, or pregnant pause when I order a Diet Coke as my beverage.  It happened at Keefer's.  I know it's New Year's Eve, but there are a few of us out there who don't drink, for whatever reason.  Don't make it seem like a hassle to you that I won't rack up a big ol' bar tab.  

After being explained the specials for the evening, Amy and I were given a few minutes to decide on our orders.  I'm glad I took the time, even though I knew what I wanted LONG before we got to the restaurant (Thanks Interwebs).  During the additional time, I noticed that while the House Salad came with a mustard vinaigrette dressing - there were OTHER dressings available for the salad.  I noticed that there was kind of a big deal made about the Thousand Island dressing on another salad, so I substituted that onto my salad.  THAT was a very good choice.  The dressing was amazing.  AND...the house salad is ONLY LETTUCE.  I was in picky eater heaven.  They use a Boston bibb lettuce, which is very delicate, along with some endive and radicchio - combine that with the dressing, and you have a salad that was VERY pleasing to this carnivore.  Amy had the Shrimp Gumbo, which was the soup of the day.  I tried a little of it, and it had a nice flavor with a little afterkick that kind of announced its presence a few seconds after it hit your mouth.   

We also ordered our entrees.  I went with the Bone In Ribeye - and in the ordering process I made a mistake.  I have been programmed through 20+ years of eating subpar steaks to order medium well by default.  In the last few years, I have gone to better establishments, and discovered a love of medium rare steaks.  I said to our waiter "medium well" but immediately corrected myself.  I know he got the message, because he asked me if I wanted the steak red and warm throughout, which is the definition of medium rare.  For those of you who skipped English in high school...what's happening now is a literary technique known as foreshadowing.

Amy ordered the Roast Venison Loin off the specials menu, which came with a huckleberry sauce.  For my side (and indeed to share) I ordered the Pommes Frites, which is French for fried potatoes, or French Fries.  There was a reason for this particular side dish order.  When I went to Peter Luger's a couple years ago, I had been told to order the German Fried Potatoes, which was more like a potato salad.  I'm not that big a fan of potato salad, so I was left wanting after trying it.  I watched the waiter bring an enormous pile of steak fries to another table, and immediately wished we had gotten them instead.  While prepping for Keefer's, I watched this video, and I thought, based on the presentation, that the fries were special.  I decided that if that big a deal was made of them, I wasn't passing them up at this place, like I had at Luger's.  Did you catch that?  If you were paying attention - that's foreshadowing.

This is the only photo here from the web.
Wish MY steak had looked like this.

Shortly after finishing our appetizers, our entrees arrived.  Amy's venison was beyond tender...and also appeared to be cooked really, really rare.  Like, bordering on venison tartare.  I sampled a little bit of it, and it was really, really good.  It almost melted in your mouth.  Amy was very pleased with her order.  My steak came, and my first bite was great.  Charred to perfection, a whole bunch of flavor, and a very nice texture.  Then I got a little further into the steak.  What should have been red was pinkish brown.  Yeah, I got a medium well to well done steak, having ordered medium rare.  Owing to the occasion, our long day that we'd already logged, the ticking clock on our babysitter (my sister - thanks Cindy), and the fact that I definitely did order medium well before I corrected myself, I didn't want to wait for a new steak.  So, I went ahead and ate my overcooked entree.  I will say, for a medium well steak, it was VERY good...but it wasn't what I wanted.  I probably should have sent it back.  I wish I had.  I've since written the restaurant, so we'll see how they handle it, but I was disappointed in that. 

The other disappointment was the Pommes Frites.  Wheaton Bowl used to have a Fish Fry on Friday evenings when I was a kid.  All you could eat whitefish and french fries.  We went probably 5-6 times a year.  Know why I bring that up now?  Because that's PRECISELY what the fries at Keefer's tasted like.  Not a bad thing, but at 7 bucks an order....I guess I was expecting more.  If we decide to go back, I'll have a baked potato next time. 



Must eat the pudding if the Chef recommends it....



After we finished our meals, I had some really good coffee, then perused the dessert menu.  The waiter advised us that the chef recommended the chocolate pudding and the cheesecake.  I got the pudding, Amy got the cheesecake.  Both were very, very good.  The pudding was a bittersweet chocolate, which was nice after a filling meal.  Too sugary would have been a downer at that point. 

The meal was over.  We had been in there nearly two hours, never feeling rushed, and we got out of the place for a little less than $170 (tip included). 

Amy's cheesecake.

A couple of other notes before I sum up. 



The bathroom stalls go from about 4 inches off the floor to about 4 inches off the ceiling.  Using them feels like a private room.  Nice touch. 

The wait staff really does its job well. 

The chef can be seen wandering through the restaurant, and as I said, the owner greets you at the door. 

The crowd is lively, but not loud. 

All in all, Keefer's was a very, very nice experience.  I'd like to go back and get my steak done correctly, as I've read many reviews that say they have the best steaks in town.  I'm not sure we will, though.  If it comes down to a choice between Keefer's and Joe's while we're downtown - well, this couple is probably going to Joe's. 


Happy New Year.  We're out on New Year's!  Alert the media...



NEXT MONTH:  Gibson's in Rosemont.