A few words about Steaks in Savannah
Jesse Blanco: I consider myself something of a snob when it comes to steaks. I don’t have a whole lot of trouble admitting that. I’m not a snob about a whole lot of things considering I’ve been tasting and eating food professionally now for a decade and a half. You know, I can be tolerant of a lot of things. Hey, it was good. Hey, it was okay. Yeah, okay. You know, I’m not a Karen that’s going to go running to a keyboard and blowing people up. I’ve never been wired that way even before I was eating for a living.
But when it comes to steaks and freshly baked bread and maybe burgers and maybe ice cream, I can be a bit persnickety. My family will tell you that, the people who know me best will tell you that, especially when it comes to steaks. I consider myself, I’ve always been a steakhouse guy. Those memories go back to my childhood.
When I was four, five, six years old in New York city with my family, we used to go to this place in Times Square called Flame. I think it was Flame Steakhouse. And if you spent any time in New York city in the 70s, you probably knew of it. It was either in Times Square or just off of Times Square. For all I know, it might’ve been a chain, I was five years old, what the hell did I know? But we would go there because my family loved it. And I do remember, right when you walked in the door on the right, there was a big old grill up against the window to the sidewalk, so if you were walking up and down the sidewalk in New York City, you’d see these steaks being grilled and the flames shooting up into the air, and that’s how they pulled people in. And I remember… it’s crazy, 50 years ago, I remember those steaks and I remember how much I liked them.
Well, as my dad loved to tell the story later on, back in those days, I would eat my steak I’m sure they got me a tiny, whatever it was, and I would finish everybody else’s. Well, not everybody’s, but a couple of others. Yeah, I’d eat mine and I’d finish theirs. I just, for whatever reasons, going all the way back then, I had an affinity for steak. Well, as I grew up and got older and, you know, went on my own and started doing my thing, I still maintain that affinity for a well-prepared steak–can’t say well done. And so that has led to me being a connoisseur, an aficionado. I learned over the years about quality of beef, I learned about how to make it properly, I learned that, you know, a great sear with a nice crust on a steak, medium, sometimes medium rare inside as long as I’ve got that bark on the outside, is just heaven for me. And so with all of that as a back–well, let me back up and say, you know, as a result, of that passion for the perfect steak, I have eaten at so many, I mean, I can’t say all obviously, that’s ridiculous, but I’ve eaten at so many of some of the better steak houses in America. I could go down a list, I could probably name 20 right now. I’m not going to do that, but you know, let’s start in New York, kind of a Mecca for steak houses; Old Homestead, Keens, Quality Meats, the most overrated steak in America which I believe is Peter Luger’s–once upon a time it might’ve been good, but the last couple of times I went there was just really, this is all that? Yeah, I said it, it’s overrated AF as the kids say. Outside of New York, Berns in Tampa, Del Frisco’s obviously is a chain, Bob’s is another chain, which was sensational once upon a time.
Nick and Sam’s in Dallas, I believe it’s Jeff Ruby’s up in Louisville, went in Nashville, you know, so many–Hall’s here in Charleston in the South, Christner’s right now in Orlando, a ton. There are a ton. I can name more, like I said, but I don’t need to, you get the point. I’m big into steaks and the steakhouse experience.
Well, I use all of that as a backdrop to explain the plight of the steakhouse once upon a time in Savannah. We didn’t have one. We didn’t have, you know, what you would consider in the realm of steakhouse that I just mentioned, which are some of the tops in America. Shout out, by the way, to Metropolitan Grill in Seattle. I hear they’re still going strong. I hope to get there again one day. That was fantastic. And so, Savannah, for the longest time, didn’t have that steakhouse. And as the food scene started to grow, I like to say in 2014 which was our culinary Renaissance, when so many of the modern Savannah restaurants began to open, Collin’s Quarter, Trailor Park, Cotton and Rye, The Grey, a million started in 2014, we still only had Ruth’s Chris steakhouse as our steakhouse. Somebody had given a steakhouse a shot in the heart of downtown at Broughton and Bull, there was a chophouse when I first moved back to Savannah in fall of ‘08. Short-lived, it was good at the beginning, then they started cutting corners and it kind of imploded on itself. It was a great idea, I think it was Bull Street Chophouse. But that was 2008, that was a lot of ribeyes ago. And so, Savannah, outside of Ruth’s Chris, did not have a quintessential steakhouse. We just didn’t. We had steak, sure, you could go to this place or that place and have a good steak, shout out to chef Patty Mack over at Noble Fare; for years it was the best steak I’d had in Savannah forever, the New York strip with a big old piece of foie on top. Man, that was good. I still dream about that. But anywho, we didn’t have a steakhouse. Ruth’s Chris was the most popular because it was the only one. SCAD graduation weekend, Ruth’s was bursting at the seams, because it was the steakhouse and everybody loves steak and there’s something for everybody. I was in Ruth’s Chris one night sitting at the bar when the bartender came running up to me and told me that Johnny Depp was on his way for dinner, because his girlfriend at the time was shooting a movie here, Magic Mike 3. You may have heard of her. They had a big old secret divorce that was on TV every day. I actually recorded a podcast about Johnny Depp’s visit to Ruth’s Chris that night, you can find it here on our list of podcasts. It probably goes back about a year since it was posted, but I tell that whole story. It was a very interesting evening. No, I didn’t get to see Johnny Depp.
But I used to go to Ruth’s Chris. It was all we had, and I enjoyed it. It was what it was. You know, we don’t, if you follow, Eat It and Like It, you know that we don’t get much into chains around here, so Ruth’s Chris, okay, fine, you can have Ruth’s Chris anywhere, but we do have one here in Savannah. So in 2020-2021, when I found out that the Plant Riverside district was going to feature a Steakhouse, chophouse. Obviously, I got really excited. Wow, you know, maybe this is going to be that one that has been eluding us since forever. Well, it opened, jumping forward, in 2021. It’s called Stone and Webster Chophouse. And I was so looking forward to dining there. And eventually I did, a few months after they opened, I got there. And it was a new restaurant, and I’m always patient with new restaurants, you know, there’s a higher bar, obviously, with a high end steak house, but I was kind of expecting something different than I got that first time. I use the example when I talk to people about it–let’s understand, this was four years ago, which is a long time in a restaurant’s life. I looked at the menu that first time, and I saw that their New York strip, which is my go-to cut, was only about $42 or $43 at the time. And I knew, because it’s what I do, that at the time, in some of the bigger, more prominent steakhouses out there, a great cut of New York strip was going in the sixties–high fifties to mid sixties. And so I thought, okay, that was my first red flag that this beef wasn’t the highest quality they could get. After that, I thought, okay, well, let’s see what we got. I can honestly say I did enjoy that meal. Did it under deliver from what I hoped it would be for Savannah’s first big independent steakhouse? Yes. It wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be. There was nothing bad about it, it was just kind of, okay, cool. You know, you get what you pay for. I could drive to Atlanta tomorrow and pay a lot more for a steak and go to Rathmann steakhouse and have an exceptional experience, more than I did here.
So it was what it was, it is what it is, and I understood that. Subsequent conversation I had with chef who was in charge at the time, and he said, “yeah, they wanted us to keep the price points down early on just to get our bearings and blah, blah, blah.” Okay. That makes sense. I understood. And I respected that. Okay. Cool. Had a friend who also liked steaks go independent of my visit, and we had a conversation about it. This was months later, Stone and Webster had been open at that point, seven, eight, nine months. And he said, “yeah, you know, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t that place.” I said, “that’s exactly what I thought of it. It wasn’t one of those, oh wow, a destination place.” He said, “yeah. I guess we’re going to have to settle for a B level steakhouse right now.” I said, “well, it’s better than the steakhouse we had before,” he goes, “yeah, you’re right I guess.” So in that regard, we understood, and it is what it is. Those of us who have been in Savannah long enough have come to learn to appreciate what we have, because we went without for so long. Chinese food, great Italian food, steakhouses, sushi. We’re still missing sushi, anybody will tell you out there. But, you know, we went for so long without some of these things, that you get one, and no, it might not be the best in America, but it’s what we got. And okay, we’ll roll with you for a little bit. So that was ‘21 into ‘22. We are now, as we record this, in 2025, August of 2025. I’ve probably been to Stone and Webster Chophouse twice a year. Sometimes I sit at the bar by myself, have some oysters and a steak and a vegetable and a glass of wine or two, call it a night. Saw Clint Eastwood one night doing that. Christmas time, he was here shooting his last movie, I don’t remember the name of it, but he walked by, “hey, what’s up?” And sometimes it’s with friends or family, and we sit down in a booth and we do the whole thing, and the Tomahawk and the wine and the bubbles and all that stuff. So I’ve done it all at Stone and Webster. I almost said Smith and Walensky, been to a few of those as well. But I’ve done it all at Stone and Webster.
And I’m taking this time to record all of this, because the last time I attended, had dinner at Stone and Webster was just, again, as we record this, a few nights ago. I preface that by saying, we are now in August of 2025 as I’m recording this, going back to about Christmas time of 2024, I started getting poked by friends whose palates I trust. I have a few, five or six maybe. If they text me and say, “hey, you got to try ABC at, you know, DEF”, then I’m like, okay, that’s got to go on my shortlist. Because contrary to what people think, I don’t eat out every night, multiple times a day. I’m not out there tasting every single thing that exists in Savannah, Hilton Head, Beaufort, Bluffton, Florida. I just don’t. So if somebody I trust tells me, “Hey, have you been to so-and-so yet?” “No.” “It’s legit. You need to go.” Okay. Well that all of a sudden gets moved up to the front of my line, and sometimes I’ve gone, like, the next day kind of thing. Well, back in December 2024, I got poked by a friend. “Hey, have you been to Stone and Webster lately?” “No, actually I haven’t.” “You need to go, you need to go, you need to go.” That was the first of probably three or four people in subsequent months that were poking me. “Hey, have you been to Stone and Webster lately?” “Hey, you know what I really enjoyed the other day more than I thought I would?” “What is that?” “Stone and Webster.” And so you start hearing that buzz on the street from people coming back your way, and I hadn’t been probably since last fall, knowing me. And so you think, okay, well, I’m hearing this from multiple people whose palates I trust. I need to go.
And so my daughter came back to Savannah for a hot minute, in between stops in New York and Los Angeles, she’s home for a few days. And so I said, you know what, I’ve been hearing about Stone and Webster, let’s go. So there were three of us, and I’m here to tell you the headline is it might have been the best meal I’ve had in the building being Plant Riverside District in the four years that they’ve opened.
It was capital O outstanding across the board. Everything we had and it’s hard for this to happen with me, everything that was put on our table was amazing. I don’t say that often. And if you’ve been following me for the 14-15 years we’ve been doing this, I don’t wax poetic like this all that often, but if I’m jumping up and down saying this was great… I can count probably on one hand in 15 years, the number of times here in Savannah that I’ve gone to a restaurant and had everything that was presented to us that night be exceptional. One night was a couple of years ago at Cotton and Rye, shout out to Zach and the crew there, one night was at Brochu’s Family Tradition, shout out to Andrew and the crew there, and probably a couple of others that I just don’t remember off the top of my head–oh, Common Thread, absolutely Common Thread, more than once Common Thread, shout out to Brandon and everybody there. Those three were the last that everything that was on the table was just great. “Oh man, this is great. That’s great. This was great. But did you try this?” And then came Stone and Webster last Saturday night.
Outstanding! My daughter gets the fried calamari. She only eats fried calamari because it makes it look less like an octopus, she’s only 23. I got the ricotta gnocchi with I believe it was a truffle cream sauce and mushrooms. We had a pork belly and pear appetizer… those are the apps. My wife had a beautifully presented–man, I wish the picture I took with my phone came out better, because her wedge salad was just beautiful. It looked like a little cup of lettuce, it was beautiful. And then the steaks; my daughter had a filet with obviously housemade Bernaise on a few sprigs of asparagus, grilled beautifully. We got a side of asparagus. I had a wonderful New York strip with a compound butter on it. My wife had the steak frite, which won the award for best looking dish that night. Beautiful hanger steak, cooked perfectly, sliced, it was just a thing of beauty. The picture, you can see it online if you follow me on Instagram, it was there, but it was outstanding! Everything, everything that I just mentioned, I think that was it–we had mashed potatoes as a side, another order of asparagus, and that might be it. But everything that was on our table, we were all looking at each other like, oh wow. Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow. And I got really happy, because I go back to that experience I had when they first opened in 2021, and it was okay. And it had been increasingly less, average to good every time I visit. One time I sat at the bar and I had the Australian Wagyu, which is still on the specials menu, best steak I had had there. That was last year. I was like, wow, I need to eat that every time. It ain’t cheap. I think it was 75 bucks, still on the menu, steak and fries for 75 bucks, which is what you pay for the high end stuff. So I don’t freak out at that. It is what it is.
So this meal was just off the charts. Outstanding across the board, everything, even the wine, Nebbiolo, it was just, all of it was so good that I told GM, I told chef on my way out, man, you guys crushed this. You guys crushed this. It’s the best meal I’ve had certainly here at Stone and Webster. I would put it in the top two meals that I’ve had in the building. The other being at Baobab, the air quote “lobby bar/restaurant”, which was back in, I believe, January, I was there and everything we had that night was just so, so good. Love that place. But it was just, I’m sitting there going, man, I want to come back. I want to just sit and have my standard steak and vegetables and a glass of wine, you know, I’ll do this now. This is just so good. And it made me happy though, because I’ve gotten to know chef–chefs, all of them that work in this building, working so hard to do a good job. And it’s taken a minute to get everything kind of clicking here at Plant Riverside. And as I sit here and record this at District Live Studios at Plant Riverside, I do have to stress the fact that because I’m recording here, I’m not obligated to say any of this. Those of you who know me by now know that if it weren’t the case, there would be no way. But that was just an outstanding meal that I would recommend to anybody if you’re coming to Savannah looking for a higher end steakhouse experience. Is it, you know, as high end as a lot of those other places I named, 10 or 15 or so, whatever it was, minutes ago? Probably not. But for Savannah, this is where it’s at. That restaurant, that steakhouse right now, is where it’s at.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t use this opportunity to give a shout out to a couple of the other places doing great steaks here in town. If you’re on a budget… I laugh because the place is just so ridiculous, if you’re on a budget, you need to take a look at The Steakhouse on Whitemarsh. The Steakhouse on Whitemarsh, I, again, I laugh because you walk in there and it looks like you stepped into 1981. There’s absolutely no frills. Chris McGary and his family are the owners of that place, he was a long time server at Ruth’s Chris, I’ve known him for probably a decade or more. Long time server, was their best server, he knew his wine, he knew the steakhouse experience, and so he decided to open his own place. And it’s the best price for a Tomahawk, it’s the best price for a ribeye. Notice I’m going price, price, price, because the last time I was there, you know, the trade off is they do one vegetable per night and you get what it is. You don’t get to order, “oh, I want asparagus. I don’t like corn,” you know, whatever, what we’re doing tonight is what you get. So it’s not a lot of frills… they may be doing two by now, vegetables. I laugh because Chris just doesn’t care. He wants to offer a great steak at a good price. Same with the wine. The best prices that I can offer you for good wine, or great wine, cause he carries those, and he says, this is it, take it or leave it. And it’s probably the most popular steakhouse in Savannah for locals. I have no trouble saying that, but it bears mentioning here that Steakhouse on Whitemarsh is a place that you should take a look at. They don’t do any social media to speak of, no photos certainly, but it’s a spot.
Other steaks in Savannah, I mentioned Patty Mack at Noble Fare, Noble Fare also doesn’t do much social media, if any–they have a newsletter, but he’s an exceptional talent. Best steak I’d had in forever was the New York strip he made for me once upon a time. I have obviously never forgotten that. Toni Steakhouse out in the burbs, if you will, out on the Southside that a lot of people love. And then the last one is the, I believe it’s a coffee rubbed ribeye, at 45 Bistro. 45 Bistro is probably the most talked about restaurant by locals in Savannah that no one else ever talks about. Everybody talks about Pink House and Vic’s and Alligator Soul and, and, and, and, and, and, but you rarely hear visitors talking about 45 Bistro, and the locals know it’s one of those, if you know, you know. Their steaks at 45 Bistro are outstanding.
Now, are there several other, every restaurant in town do a steak? Of course. But we’re not going to go down a long list. That was probably three or four that should be under your consideration if you are coming to Savannah and want to enjoy a steak. We have some good ones. We have a great experience now here at Stone and Webster, and I’m so excited about that. So, if you have any input, I’d love to hear from you, you can reach me at tips@eatitandlikeit.com. We’re always looking for Intel insight on what you may or may not have found out there, so let me know. Otherwise, thanks so much for hanging out here at the Eat It Like It podcast. Thanks to everyone here at District Live Studios for the digs. And we’ll see you next time.