The Best Steakhouses in the United States

This is a River Oaks District steakhouse where the lighting is flattering and the check is not. A master butcher breaks down the wet-aged cuts, and you can top an American wagyu filet with black truffle lobster, in case a steak alone felt underdressed. Expect a dressed-up room built for being seen, and a popcorn sundae at the end for anyone who still has a little room left.

The Alston is a French-leaning steakhouse on the third floor in River North, where the bread gets sliced at your table and you pick your own candle holder, which is the kind of decision-making that makes a steakhouse feel like a party. Steaks are wood grilled with French sauces on the side, but the duck gets pressed tableside, with a metal contraption wringing out the jus. Eater lists it among Chicago's best steakhouses and River North's best restaurants.

This is an upscale steakhouse operating out of a former Chicago Fire Department firehouse, which in a city with no shortage of steakhouses counts as a differentiator. Red leather stools ring a central bar, the main room is all wood paneling, and the back patio has white marble tables. Happy hour brings oyster deals, wagyu sliders, and lobster bisque under a puff pastry lid. Upstairs rooms host office holiday parties, naturally.

Moody leather and brass in a Tribeca townhouse set the stage for a modern steakhouse that takes its theatrics seriously. USDA Prime and Japanese Wagyu go through a high-heat grill after dry-aging, and the kitchen consistently delivers on both. The room has a genuine late-night-Manhattan pull to it. Service can be uneven given the price point, but the cooking tends to carry the evening. It ranked 67th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

Dry-aged beef over an open fire grill has anchored this San Francisco steakhouse since what feels like forever, and a thoughtful renovation kept the timber-and-brass room feeling current without erasing what made it. The bar stays lively and social in the way great American steakhouses always have, and the hospitality runs warm even if it can vary night to night. It landed on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which tracks.

A 60-day aged Txuleton ribeye, cooked over a charcoal-fired grill and a Spanish wood oven, is the reason this Basque steakhouse inside Mercado Little Spain exists. The kitchen splits its sourcing between American producers and Spanish importers, which puts Ibérico pork and Spanish lamb alongside the beef with a logic that holds. Sommeliers steer you toward Spanish bottles, and the martini comes with olive oil-infused gin and a Basque gilda, because of course it does.

Butcher & Thief is a steakhouse in a Sunset Road strip-mall suite, where the usual surf-and-turf script gets a few liberties. The chops are cut in-house, and the menu also runs to peanut-butter-crusted bacon, cheesesteak egg rolls, and sour cream and onion bubble bread. It's a steakhouse that remembered dinner is allowed to be fun, so expect a dressy-casual room and a check that behaves like a Vegas steakhouse check.

Guard and Grace is a downtown Houston steakhouse where a dramatic installation of bronze rods does the decorating, and the corporate lunch crowd gives way to date-night lighting after dark. There's a seafood bar for the shellfish-first set. The filet flight pairs prime wagyu with angus, for diners who can't commit. Expect expense-account prices and a dress code of "just came from a meeting."

High Steaks looks like every other Vegas steakhouse until you reach the "hunt" section of the menu, where elk, boar, and bison sit beside a "lion" entree that turns out to be a mushroom. That's a gentle joke on the carnivores. The rest stays in familiar territory with porterhouses, lobster chowder, and baked potatoes, then closes on Key lime doughnuts or a seasonal souffle. Eater lists it among the city's best steakhouses.

Pearland is not where most people expect to find a white-tablecloth steakhouse, which may explain the permanent crowd of pickup-order patrons outside. This is the fine dining side of a barbecue heavyweight's empire, so book ahead and dress like you're being seen. Wagyu runs the menu, sourced from three countries, and the beef wellington arrives under shaved black truffle. Creme brulee cheesecake closes things out, as it should.

Prime 131 is a moody Timbergrove steakhouse where four wood-fired grills sit in the middle of the dining room, so your dinner gets cooked in front of you like a very confident science fair. You pick the cut and the wood, post oak, bourbon, or pecan, and the check will reflect those decisions. Dessert comes with theatrics, including a Basque cheesecake delivered tableside in curls of smoke.

STK is a Strip steakhouse built for people who plan to be in a nightclub forty minutes later, which explains the white leather booths, the faux cherry blossom tree, and music loud enough to make you order by pointing. The lighting is kind to everyone, and the porterhouse gets finished tableside with a torch, so keep your phone out. Dress like you have somewhere better to be, and expect the bill to know it.

A 10,000-square-foot steakhouse in South Barrington built for the kind of night that ends with someone else signing the check. The menu runs to wagyu, roasted seafood towers, and lobster rolls, all designed to photograph well and eat even better. The chef came up through Gibsons Restaurant Group, so the kitchen knows its way around a serious piece of beef. Suburbs have had the chains; this is the splurge alternative.

This is a white-tablecloth steakhouse downtown, part of the Landry's empire, where the dry-aged cuts arrive after a round of caviar and oysters Rockefeller. You can go formal in the dining room or sit in the bar, where a pianist plays nightly and nobody checks your cufflinks. Expect expense-account prices and a crowd that treats a Tuesday like an occasion, which the bubbly is happy to support.

Wood-fired Argentine steaks on Melrose, served with the unhurried warmth of a family room that hasn't updated its aesthetic since Clinton's first term, and means it as a compliment. This intimate steakhouse has been around forever, still run by the same family, with one brother in the kitchen and one working the floor. The postre Gardel, a layered dulce de leche cake, has its own reputation. On the Eater 38 list of essential Los Angeles restaurants.

Kita Steak & Ribs is a steakhouse run like a family business, which it is, with grill-dad barbecue given a Vietnamese accent. It began in a Hillsboro strip mall with a short menu and a loyal following packed into very little room, and it has since moved into nicer digs in Beaverton. The menu has grown a bit, but the beef is still the point. Eater lists it among Portland's best restaurants and food carts.

Sexy Steak lives in the old Grand Army of the Republic Building downtown, where you pick your own cut from a case lined with Himalayan salt, like choosing a lobster, but for people who'd rather not. Everything is halal, the wagyu runs Japanese and American, and the menu also wanders into Italian dishes, seafood, and oysters. Expect a steakhouse bill and a lounge upstairs, plus a wine list built for the Napa cabs and Bordeaux.

The dry-aged bone-in ribeye arrives blanketed in hot butter, which tells you everything about the register this grand steakhouse is playing in. From the family behind Mastro's, Steak 48 fits Beverly Hills like a bespoke suit, with a seafood tower stacked high and sides that go past the usual (corn brulee, Hasselback potatoes). The room skews dressed-up and the tabs follow suit, but the kitchen keeps the promise the room makes.

Inside the South Congress Hotel, Maie Day is a steakhouse in the way a band covers a song, recognizable but slightly, pleasingly off. The chef behind Olamaie runs this one, and the menu leans on shareable plates, seafood-forward starters, and cuts that stray from the usual canon, a whiskey-brined pork chop, a chicken fried steak with peppery white gravy. The room is festive in the non-embarrassing sense, and the blooming onion is back, earnestly.

The Ra Ra Room is a supper club tucked inside PHX Arena where entry runs $15,000 a year in membership fees, which means most people get in by befriending someone richer than themselves. Major Food Group runs the room, and the menu leans heavily on steaks and Italian. The real closer is the candy alcove at the end of the night, a small room stocked with lollipops, peanut brittle, and jelly beans that guests take home freely.

The water arrives with a tray of cucumbers, lime, and lemon so you can pick your infusion, which tells you something about how seriously this Korean steakhouse in Vienna takes its choices. A six-course prix fixe builds around American wagyu cuts grilled tableside, but nearly every element is yours to configure, from appetizers to noodles to the savory finish. The kind of place where the decisions feel like half the dinner.

There are hitching posts out back, which tells you most of what you need to know about T-Bone Steak House. This old-school steakhouse in South Phoenix, built from river rock and adobe and been around forever, does simple things well: New York strip, barbecue chicken, house-made apple pie. The patio catches the sun setting over the Valley, and the crowd arriving just before dusk has clearly done this before.

The glass case runs long and cold, stocked with Ohio-raised Wagyu and whole-animal cuts that make you reconsider your dinner plans on the spot. Rekas is a butcher shop and deli in the old Cincinnati tradition, where you can take home a porterhouse or just let someone else do the work and order a Wagyu roast beef sandwich. The team behind Wyoming Meat Market built this one, and it shows in the quality of what's in the case.

A $600 steak finished tableside, a golden dragon statue, and an LED wall of tropical fish that looks like it was designed by an algorithm that studied Las Vegas for a decade. Three Thirty Three is an Asian fusion restaurant that knows its audience: the dining room is built to be filmed. Expect a loud, theatrical night on the Scottsdale-Tempe border where the appetizers arrive like they have publicists.