Alpen Rose

Ring the doorbell on 13th Street, wait for the peephole to slide open, and you're in. Michael Schulson's tribute to his grandmother is a tiny, plush room of leather booths and warm low light that feels nothing like the city's other steakhouses. The porterhouse is carved tableside, nearly everything is dry-aged in-house, and the kitchen also turns out a dry-aged duck in orange gastrique that might be the sleeper hit of the menu. Reservations are hard to come by, and the deliberately unhurried pace makes that feel entirely justified.