{"id":250905,"date":"2026-06-01T15:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/250905\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T15:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:16:07","slug":"one-of-the-most-fabled-nyc-restaurants-of-the-2010s-returns-briefly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/250905\/","title":{"rendered":"One Of The Most Fabled NYC Restaurants Of The 2010s Returns… Briefly"},"content":{"rendered":"

In memory, at least, I spent a good chunk of the 2010s ensconced in one of the dimly lit booths in the back room of the Beatrice Inn<\/a> on West 12th St., with a Smoked Manhattan and a colossal 45 day dry-aged burger dripping with d\u2019Affinois cheese in front of me. The basement establishment, in a building dating to the 1840s, had gone through a lot of iterations<\/a> over the previous century, from an Italian restaurant to a brief heyday in the \u201800s<\/a> as a clubby hipster bar\/social club frequented by A-list celebs. Graydon Carter<\/a>, of Spy Magazine<\/a>, Vanity Fair<\/a> and, well, Graydon Carter fame bought the place and turned it into a mediocre<\/a>, but still celeb-studded, \u201cchophouse,\u201d in his description. <\/p>\n

But all that was before chef Angie Mar<\/a> came on board in 2013. Once she was in the kitchen, the Bea stopped only being about who you\u2019d see, and more about what you were eating. Mar works with meat the way Miles Davis worked with a trumpet, or Shohei Ohtani works with a baseball. She\u2019s a master of the art \u2014 an inventive, creative, artery-clogging genius. Her greatest Beatrice hits, from her 75-day aged lavender-infused steak to her colossal tomahawks, wrapped in whisky-soaked cloth (Brenne<\/a> French single malt, to be precise) for 160 days, to her insane-but-brilliant bone marrow cr\u00e9me brul\u00e9e that was even better than having more steak for dessert, all remain firmly lodged in the memories of a generation of New York carnivores.<\/p>\n

Chef Angie Mar in the kitchen of the Beatrice Inn in 2016, the year she bought the restaurant from Graydon Carter.<\/p>\n

Photo by Tony Sachs<\/p>\n

The Beatrice\u2019s dry-aging program was done in-house, or at least in-building. \u201cWe had insane amounts of dried beef,\u201d Mar remembers. \u201cI’ll say this now, because the restaurant doesn’t exist anymore. I was doing it definitely illegally. I had these reach-in fridges in my office, above the Beatrice, and I had, like, $80,000 worth of beef at one time in those fridges. It was crazy. My office was basically a studio apartment that we had converted into an office. So I had, like, three desks in there and fridges just plugged in. And we were just drying beef in there. It was bananas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bar program was as solid as the food, from the botanical-laden G & T served Spanish-style in a goblet, to the cherrywood-smoked rye Manhattan \u2014 one of the first smoked cocktails I can recall seeing \u2014 to the Big Poppa, which was… well, more on that later. None of it was cheap. The tomahawk steak alone could run a table up to $1,000. But a whole lot of New Yorkers considered it worth the blow to the wallet. <\/p>\n

In 2016, Mar bought the Beatrice from Carter. It was a signature moment in NYC culinary history, in which a chummy boys\u2019 club in an industry dominated by men became the domain of a female Asian-American from Seattle. She didn\u2019t just become the hot celeb chef of the moment \u2014 she became a central culinary figure who helped define the whole crazy decade. <\/p>\n

Mar was already planning a move from the dark basement digs on West 12th St. to an airier, lighter corner space a few doors away when the pandemic hit; by 2021, she\u2019d re-thought the Bea\u2019s concept entirely and reopened as Le Trois Chevaux<\/a>, a posh, ultra-elegant, extremely French restaurant whose serene vibe \u2014 and a dress code! \u2014 was almost the opposite of that of the bustling, noisy Beatrice. In 2023, it evolved into its current iteration, Le B<\/a>, which injected a little of the casual Beatrice Inn vibe back into the mix. <\/p>\n

To mark Mar\u2019s 10th anniversary of taking the reins at the Beatrice, she\u2019s taking the opportunity to revisit some of its greatest hits, both food and drink, at Le B this summer. \u201c2016 changed the trajectory of my career,\u201d Mar says. \u201cI went from being the girl that was working for Graydon Carter to the girl that bought Graydon Carter out of his restaurant. I think it was really time to pay homage to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le Burger \u2014 a 45-day dry aged ribeye blend, dripping with d’Affinois cheese and onions slow-cooked in Bordeaux wine.<\/p>\n

Photo by Tony Sachs<\/p>\n

That means the Bea\u2019s fabled burger \u2014 which she\u2019d already reintroduced on a very limited basis at Le B\u2019s bar \u2014 is, for now at least, back on the menu restaurant-wide. For me, it\u2019s the signature burger of the wild decade of excess that was the 2010s, and is still, in these head-spinning, joy-sapping times, up there with the best burgers New York has to offer. The colossal patty, mostly ribeye augmented by short rib and chuck, is cooked medium rare, tender and juicy without getting mushy or soggy. The patty is enrobed with gooey, dripping d\u2019Affinois cheese (a type of Brie) and topped with onions slow-cooked in Bordeaux wine until they\u2019re so soft they melt into a jam-like consistency. No condiments are provided; none are needed. <\/p>\n

Le Burger<\/a>, as it\u2019s now named, is served in a custom-made brioche bun that miraculously absorbs all the beef\u2019s juices without falling apart. At the Beatrice it was served with fries; now it comes with potato straws. I turned my nose up at the straws until I actually had a taste of them. I have no idea what magic was done with them, but they\u2019re more than passable, they\u2019re addictive. The burger, made with meat dry-aged for 45 days, is treated with the same reverence as steak, and that\u2019s reflected in the price \u2014 between $60-74, depending on beef prices. It\u2019s the most expensive burger that\u2019s not slathered in truffles or caviar or served with a diamond ring on the side … but for burger fiends like me, whose dreams have been haunted by its memory, it\u2019s worth every cent.<\/p>\n

The best accompaniment to Le Burger is the Samkus<\/a>. Mar explains the name: \u201cMuch of the [Beatrice Inn\u2019s] cocktail program was originally developed alongside my longtime creative partner, Antanas Samkus<\/a>. Antanas sadly passed away from cancer two years ago, but his influence and the team he helped mentor continue to shape the menu today. One example is the Smoked Manhattan, which we renamed the \u2018Samkus\u2019 in his honor.” Nowadays, chain restaurants offer smoked cocktails and home cocktail smoking kits are commonplace. But more than a decade ago, the Smoked Manhattan was a big deal, especially when it was presented inside a smoke-filled crystal decanter that was opened tableside. Back then, it was made with rye whiskey and cherrywood; nowadays, it\u2019s made with Japanese whisky and smoked oolong tea (sourced from Mar\u2019s mother in Beijing), and as a result it\u2019s a gentler but no less flavorful drink.<\/p>\n

The Samkus cocktail at Le B, mid-preparation (that’s the glass getting smoked).<\/p>\n

Photo by Tony Sachs<\/p>\n

The Samkus should be your second cocktail of the night. The first should be the M. Wallace, formerly known as the aforementioned Big Poppa. \u201cWe named this, obviously, after Biggie Smalls,\u201d says Mar, \u201cand now we call it Monsieur Wallace, because obviously this feels like a more grown-up restaurant. This cocktail has not changed at all, except the name.\u201d <\/p>\n

As it should be. Whatever its name, it\u2019s now, as it was then, a simply extraordinary cocktail. At heart it\u2019s a sour, with yuzu, yellow Chartreuse and egg white shaken until frothy. Truffle-infused gin gives it an extraordinary pungency and a stunning sweet-tart-umami trifecta of flavor. Creamy and velvety, the glass is rimmed with gold dust \u2014 and there\u2019s a fair amount of it swirling around atop the drink as well. It\u2019s over-the-top, a tad ostentatious, and hits just as hard as it did a decade ago. <\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t the only one who loved it. \u201cI have this amazing picture of Rose McGowan when she shaved her head,\u201d Mar says. \u201cRemember that era? She was out at the Beatrice and she had a shaved head and she had bold lips. And she was holding this cocktail. It was, like, the thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other longtime Beatrice favorites are making their return, including a large breast of duckling flamb\u00e9ed tableside. It\u2019s still one of the best pyrotechnic shows in town, and topped with fresh cherries from Washington State, it tastes just as good as the flames look. The famed lavender beef is back, as is the cote du boeuf, topped with charred prawns, blackberries and garlic confit, which was considered the entry-level beef dish at the Beatrice. Other classics, both food and drink, will be rotating in and out throughout the summer-long gastronomic look back. <\/p>\n

If you missed the Beatrice Inn the first time around, now\u2019s your chance to taste the legend, in the more tranquil environs of Le B, but with Angie Mar still at the helm. And if you were there, it\u2019s a chance to take a Proustian trip back in time \u2014 plus a chance to check out some of Mar\u2019s brilliant current-day fare (don\u2019t sleep on the calves\u2019 brain ravioli, I\u2019m just saying).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In memory, at least, I spent a good chunk of the 2010s ensconced in one of the dimly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93571,86717,4963,97851,17605,36407,4961,97853,9,56,63,65,64,40957,97852],"class_list":["post-250905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-angie-mar","tag-beatrice-inn","tag-burgers","tag-classic-new-york-restaurants","tag-cocktails","tag-graydon-carter","tag-le-b","tag-le-burger","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-steakhouse","tag-west-village-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}