3. It helped make everyone want the off-menu, limited-run, extra-exclusive entrée.
Everyone loves being in on a little secret, especially if it’s an IYKYK off-menu item. There are the meatballs at Carbone, the pressed duck at Restaurant Daniel, and then there’s the 45-day dry-aged ribeye at Lilia.
“They’re gigantic,” Robbins says. “We hang them over the wood fire for about an hour every night before service, and they just get a little of the smoke, and they break down, and they become really tender. They get basted with rosemary garlic butter the whole time that they’re hanging.”
Lilia has never and will never be a steakhouse, yet this Flinstonian cut has been a banger almost since day one. Part of the allure lies in the drama — as soon as a table orders a 32-ounce, bone-in hunk of beef their neighbors inevitably get jealous. Part of it is good old-fashioned supply and demand. Like Adda’s butter chicken experience (limited to six per night) or Raoul’s burger au poivre (limited to just 12 per weeknight and served only at the bar), Lilia’s steaks are of limited quantity.
“I really didn’t want to put a steak on the menu,” Robbins says. “[When we opened] we had a very robust finance crowd at Lilia, thank you to Sean and his former life. I just was like, ‘We’re going to turn into a steakhouse if I put a steak on, but I really want to do this. Let’s just do seven a night.’’
Although steak was never supposed to be the plan, that shifted courtesy of Lilia’s very famous neighbor Peter Luger Steak House. For a while, Robbins would go to lunch at the famous steakhouse with other industry folks. “Masa [Takayama] came from Masa, and he brought all his own condiments,” she remembers. “In the middle of Luger’s. It was amazing. Just no shame. He had this garlic thing, and I was like, ‘Man, this is so good.’ Then I went back and started playing around with steaks.”
Roughly a year-and-a-half in, the owners of Peter Luger came to check out Lilia for themselves. Feeney remembers getting a rather chilly reception. “They all said, ‘We wanted to come here to check out if you’re stealing our people, because our servers keep talking about how nice you are and how much they love Lilia,’” Feeney says.
After he assured them that was not the case, the owners said they couldn’t wait to see if Lilia’s steak was any good. “They said from that night on, they were going to come here to celebrate events,” Feeney says. “‘Our favorite steak.’”
Dining and Cooking