STREET Kitchen: Birds, Beef and a Cabinet Full of Aging Rib Eye

The cabinet is the first thing the room tells you about. Glass fronted, temperature and humidity held steady, and behind it whole rib eyes going dark and firm at twenty eight days and counting. The menu invites you to walk over and look, in exactly those words: ask to see it. On a Tuesday at seven, half the tables on Harding Avenue are still empty and this one is not. A waffle goes past carrying a fried chicken thigh and a slick of maple chili syrup, which is the dish that made this restaurant's name, and behind it a plate of lamb chops under dukkah. Chef David Benrey opened these doors in January 2020, two months before the world closed, and the room has been full most nights since.

The dry aging cabinet is not decor. It holds whole rib eyes at controlled temperature and humidity for twenty eight days and more, and everything the kitchen is proudest of comes out of it. The fourteen ounce rib eye arrives with two sides and a crust that only time in that box produces, mineral and concentrated where a fresh cut would be merely beefy. The rib eye for two comes on the bone and is priced by the pound, which is the honest way to sell a piece of meat that varies. The surprise steak is cut from the top of the rib eye. The truffle filet takes a center cut and sets it under a homemade truffle bordelaise with winter truffle shaved over the top.