Being back at Le Relais de Venise was a great feeling: this place, although less crowded than usual, survived, still serving their delicious steak frites with a secret sauce that kept its mystery after more than 60 years. It’s French but refers to Venice in its name and decor; well, there is a good explanation for this: in 1959, a French winemaker, Paul Gineste de Saurs, decided to open a restaurant where he would showcase the family wine, Le Chateau de Saurs. He bought a restaurant in Paris that was…Italian! He had no experience in the restaurant business and decided to keep the place as is and only propose one menu option: the steak frites. Bold at that time and still today as, if you are only serving one dish, you better execute it well. I believe they still do. And by the way, they still offer their house wine prefixed with the restaurant name (I instead went for a Pinot Noir from Burgundy - 2018).

Glass of Pinot Noir from Burgundy at Le Relais de Venise in NYC

I love the principle: they just ask you how you want your steak: rare, medium or well done. There is no medium-rare for instance, and they will write the initial of the temperature on the paper table cloth. They then bring their bread and salad topped with walnuts.

Walnut salad at Le Relais de Venise in NYC

Once you finish your salad, you get the steak frites, a sirloin cooked to perfection, smothered with this delicious sauce that I always ask to also put on these thin and crispy fries that I love so much. But wait! This is the first serving: once you are done, they come with more!!!

Steak frites at Le Relais de Venise in NYC

And if you are vegetarian, no worries: they have a cheese plate (instead of the temperature of the steak, they will put a V on the tablecloth). They were not able to tell us what all the cheeses were, but there was definitely a Camembert, a goat and a blue cheese. By the way, there were also walnuts in the middle of the cheese, so I am wondering if they are also growing walnut trees on top of making wine! Another salad came, larger (I was not sure it it was a mistake). Interestingly, it came with fries with that sauce on part of the plate. Does that mean that the sauce is vegetarian ? I doubt it.

With the vegetarian meal came a dessert as the minimum per person is $33.95 that is the cost of the steak frites. I admit that it is always difficult to pick just one, as they have lots of mouth watering options. We finally went for their vacherin, a signature dessert that is a must have. This impressive tower that I am still surprised can stand straight, is made with a fantastic meringue that is crunchy on the outside and gooey inside. There is first a meringue, then a scoop of vanilla ice cream, another meringue, a scoop of praline ice cream, a meringue, some whipped cream, the whole thing topped with a dark chocolate sauce. First of all, I was happy to have praline ice cream because it is not something I find often here (I use to buy it at the supermarket when living in France and indulge…quite often…). Then, it is not too sweet, the ice cream balancing the sweetness of the meringue and chocolate sauce.

This was a great meal, as usual. Le Relais de Venise has a great concept and they are doing very well with the one thing they are known for, with a steak frites that is delicious and better than what some of more known restaurants offer.

Enjoy (I did)!

If you like this post, the photos or the blog, please feel free to share it or post a comment. Merci!

Le Relais de Venise - 590 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10022

I Just Want To Eat!