Next up on the table was a steak, a ten-ounce filet cooked rare, side of mashed potatoes, side of béarnaise -- same as I'd ordered at the Capital Grille. According to the Palm's menu, its meat is "prime aged" -- which means nothing, as far as I know. It's just another meaningless bit of menu-speak. I do know that the Palm does some of the best steaks in town, and that this one was good. But the Capital Grille's was better. It dry-ages its steaks, making for incredibly tender, smoky, flavor-dense cuts of meat. Both béarnaise sauces were freshly made, rich and eggy, peppery, almost minty with fresh tarragon. At the Grille, it had come in another small tureen, brought separately by my waitress and placed close at hand. At the Palm, it came in a monkey dish with a spoon.
All night, as I sat at the Palm, I wanted to be somewhere else. I wanted to be at the good party. I wanted a table at the Capital Grille. It had out-Palmed the Palm with its food, out Del Frisco'd Del Frisco with its steakhouse decor, and Mortoned the shit out of Morton's with its service. So I, as Chairman Kaga minus the ermine robes, declared the Capital Grille the winner and stalked back out into the night, determined to try again tomorrow. On my car was a parking ticket. Dinner, with all the comings and goings, had taken about twice the time I'd paid for.
Mark Manger
At your service: The Capital Grille dining room is ready
for a crowd.
Location Info
Details
1450 Larimer Street,
303-539-2500. Hours: 11:30 a.m.-3
p.m., 5-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday;
11:30 a.m.-3 p.m., 5-11 p.m. Friday;
5-11 p.m. Saturday; 4-9 p.m.
Sunday
Lobster bisque: $9.95
Filet
mignon with béarnaise:
$20.95
Shrimp cocktail:
$11.95
Sirloin, 14 oz.:
$29.95
Steak au poivre:
$30.95
Roasted chicken:
$17.95
Lobster, by the pound
Market
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I'd finally get my dinner at the Capital Grille, and another lunch as well. I'd never find the right opportunity to pocket one of those beautiful knives, but I'd get to sample the lobster -- sold by the pound, from two to five and beyond, and more delicious if only by a degree than the Nova Scotia beauties sold for sixty bucks and up at the Palm -- and two more steaks: a fourteen-ounce sirloin cooked a perfect rare and left alone, and a delicately handled au poivre, done medium on the button and napped with a Courvoisier cream that represented the last gasp of classic Continental steakhouse fare in the best possible way.
I would make reservations like a gentleman, arrive promptly, and be treated with excellent, affectionate care while eating shrimp cocktails -- the shellfish boiled and served on a platter of ice -- and huge, whole roasted chicken with mashed red-skin potatoes. The chicken was cooked tenderly, just barely to the bone, and spiced with salt and pepper, paprika, garlic and lemon for a simple flavor that worked wonderfully in surroundings so fresh they're still dripping money.
Finally, I would have everything I wanted: great food in elegant surroundings, doting service with attention to every little detail -- from lights to silver, from rounding down the change on the bills when you pay with cash to padding every table so that the plates don't clink when they're set down -- and a spot at the good party that was worth the wait.
I'll be back another night for my knife. Because the Capital Grille has done what I would have considered the impossible before my meals there: found customers -- enough customers -- for a steakhouse in a town already overrun with steakhouses. And all it had to do to fill The Book was be better than everyone else in every possible way.
