![]() Opening a plastic-and-aluminum deli container to find the iconic wedge salad was like seeing an old friend: the refreshing crunch of tightly coiled ruffles of iceberg, the surprisingly juicy chopped tomato, the chunky blue-cheese dressing, the unmistakable, thick-cut, heart-clogging bacon. My expectations for delivery were measured. But she’d enjoyed the experience so much that she repeated it, despite the cost. When a friend told me recently that she’d had Luger delivered, I was skeptical. ![]() I didn’t make it there before March of 2020, and, suddenly, it was too late. ![]() ![]() When, in October, 2019, the Times gave the restaurant a scathing review, I was inspired to reassess for myself. The restaurant’s dry-aged porterhouse travels surprisingly well, and its steak sauce is sold by the bottle. Luger’s atmosphere had always been at least half of the appeal without it, the steep prices were hard to justify. On my last visit, in 2015, I’d sat in the overflow space upstairs, where wall-to-wall carpeting and generic banquet chairs were a sad substitute for the well-worn wooden floors and furniture that give the main dining areas the charming feel of a German beer hall. A family tradition of steak-fuelled birthday celebrations had fizzled out. I had loved it, once, but before the pandemic I hadn’t been in years. Until a few weeks ago, Peter Luger, which was founded in 1887, was just about the last New York restaurant I would have associated with takeout. Nichols’s then assistant would “go to Peter Luger’s every day to get him and the cast burgers for lunch.” In his new biography of Mike Nichols, the critic Mark Harris details how, a few months into shooting Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” for HBO, the production fell behind schedule and Nichols’s “spirits started to flag.” What would cheer him up? “Most often, the answer was food,” Harris writes. ![]()
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