Keens Steakhouse

Keens began as part of the Lambs Club, the theatre and literary society, under a manager named Albert Keen, and in 1885 it opened on its own as Keens Chophouse in what was then the Herald Square theatre district. Actors in full stage make-up came through the back door between acts at the Garrick next door. In 1905 the actress Lillie Langtry sued to be let into the gentlemen-only rooms, won, swept in wearing a feather boa and ordered the mutton chop. Today it is the only survivor of that theatre district.

Look up. The ceilings are hung with the largest collection of churchwarden pipes in the world, long clay pipes too fragile to carry, which regulars checked at the house. The Pipe Club's roster ran past ninety thousand names, among them Theodore Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, J.P. Morgan and Buffalo Bill Cody.

The chop itself is now lamb rather than mutton, a change made after mutton fell out of favour, and it is still the reason to go.

What to order is not a hard question. The mutton chop has been praised by James Beard in 1950, Jonathan Gold in 2001 and Frank Bruni twice in 2007, which is a fairly complete century of American food writing agreeing on one thing. The chop itself is now lamb rather than mutton, a change made after mutton fell out of favour, and it is still the reason to go.

It serves lunch on weekdays from a quarter to twelve, and dinner every night. A weekday lunch in the Pipe Room is the civilised way to do it. For a business dinner, it has the advantage of being very hard to criticise.

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