When Smith & Wollensky first opened in New York in the United States in 1977, it became an instant hit.
Founded by restaurateur Alan Stillman – who was also responsible for the inception of T.G.I. Friday’s – the brand grew to such iconic repute that it was even featured in films like The Devil Wears Prada and American Psycho.
Today, Smith & Wollensky has spread its wings beyond the US, with global outposts in Taipei (Taiwan), London (England) and Seoul (South Korea), to name a few.
Last December, the brand formally entered the Kuala Lumpur dining scene with a salubrious first outlet in KLCC.
The green-centric eatery is sprawling, cavernous even – stretched out over two floors with a 1,670sq m expanse, including an all-day dining space housed just across from the steakhouse.
The restaurant also boasts one of the largest cellars in the Klang Valley – home to 10,000 bottles of wine and over 1,300 labels as well as 60 different kinds of sake kept in temperatures that range between 13°C and 15°C, 24 hours a day.
Despite its obvious beauty, bringing such a storied brand to KL hasn’t been without its challenges.
For one thing, at the moment, the KL outlet is the only one in the world that does not serve Smith & Wollensky’s famed dry-aged USDA prime beef, something that the management is hopeful will be sorted soon – once halal-certified USDA beef can be attained.
“We did quite a bit of research in advance to try and find 200-day Australian grain-fed Angus beef that we feel mirrors as close as we can to the USDA prime beef. Is it as good? Well, I’m American so I can’t help but feel that American beef is the best.
“But you know, it’s really as close as we can get,” says Kim Dunsmore, the executive vice president of operations for Smith & Wollensky.
To store the beef, the restaurant has a custom-built dry ageing machine that dry-ages the beef for 28 days.
All the steaks are cooked in a broiler (the equivalent of an upside-down grill) to give it a perfect crust, good colour and tender succulence within.
From what’s on offer on the menu, there is plenty to whet the appetite.
You could start with an appetiser in the form of the Crab Cake (RM98) served with watercress salad, mustard dressing and ginger sauce.
The highlight here is the crab cake itself, which has a crisp crust stuffed to the brim with plump, voluptuous tufts of crab meat.
The watercress salad adds a refreshing touch while the mustard dressing offers a tart counterpoint to the meal.
The Angry Prawn (RM79) meanwhile is made up of crispy battered prawns against a bedrock of spicy lobster sauce.
The prawns here are large with a crunchy carapace and gently fiery underpinnings.
It isn’t groundbreaking fare – but it’s a nice way to open up your palate to the big-ticket items on the menu.
Warm your palate with something lighter on the stomach, like the Red Coral Trout (RM168).
The broiled red coral fillet with chive butter, capsicum and Asian salsa verde offers a nice way to enjoy the fish in its au naturel state – fresh, fleshy and flaky to its core.
When you’re ready, go all out and indulge in the restaurant’s raison d’etre – the steaks – with the T-Bone Steak (RM660).
This gargantuan 750g of meat is phenomenal. Each slice is cut thick, the way most American steakhouses prefer to cut their meat, and boasts an enviable char on the surface that succumbs willingly to flesh that is firm yet has a flexible soul and a juicy heart.
It is steak that is bold and unwavering in its self-esteem and this gives it a sexy, seductive appeal, because as it turns out, the premise also lives up to the promise.
Pair this with any one of the restaurant’s three signature Malaysia-exclusive sauces in the form of lada kelapa (coconut pepper sauce), hijau Asia (Asian green sauce) and asam jawa (tamarind steak sauce).
Of the trio, the asam jawa sauce is particularly beguiling – potent with a pertinently tangy underbelly that lends the meat an inescapable edge.
You can also opt to pimp up your steak with a few side sides like the Truffle Mac and Cheese (RM50) and Creamy Baby Spinach (RM35).
The former is a bewitchingly hot temptress whose sweltering surface – once cracked open – reveals intensely creamy macaroni coated in a cheese sauce with a hedonistic overlay of truffle gilding its opulence.
The creamy baby spinach meanwhile is another alluring number that is rich and garlicky with lovely vegetal undertones.
End your meal with a spectacularly memorable dessert in the form of the Gigantic Chocolate Cake (RM119).
This 10-layer, 1kg cake is probably the largest slice of cake you’re ever going to have in your lifetime, so make room for the extra calories, because this cake is worth it.
The dessert features delectably moist cake, mousse and ganache interspersed together in a huge slice that is honestly the most decadent, triumphant chocolate cake ever – the sort of thing that lives up to the word “unforgettable”.
Moving forward, the restaurant’s general manager Mahamad Hafiz Abdullah says the plan is to secure the prized USDA halal beef that is crucial to the business in the next few months as well as improve restaurant traffic this year before looking at eventual expansion to other parts of South-East Asia.
“We have an agreement that we can open in three different regions. The plan is to expand and have two outlets in Singapore, two in Indonesia and two in Malaysia,” explains Hafiz.
