A note on the words: a porterhouse is a large T-bone cut that carries both the sirloin and the fillet on one bone — at Peter Luger it is dry-aged USDA Prime, served sliced on a scorching-hot plate with melted butter. Prices in this post are as of this writing (August 2026).
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Peter Luger Steak House Tokyo on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Steak lovers, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
That season has come round again: Peter Luger Steak House Tokyo. Founded in Brooklyn in 1887, ranked at the top of the New York Zagat survey for more than thirty years, one of America’s oldest steakhouses — and there is a branch in Ebisu. The signature is the porterhouse steak, a T-bone that gives you both fillet and sirloin: USDA Prime beef, dry-aged, seared in a dedicated broiler to lock in the flavour. Once a year, I need this.
So let us take our time in the world of an old-school steakhouse once more.
I was slightly late for the reservation that day, and when I sat down a glass of champagne was already waiting. A happy start!
The order, as always, starts with the seafood platter and works through in sequence.
I usually eat until it hurts. But once in a while — why not!
The classic starter: Caesar salad with pecorino cheese. Crisp romaine, the salt of the pecorino, a rich dressing that clings to every leaf. This. Is. Good.
What you must pair it with is the Luger’s sizzling thick-cut bacon — absolutely order this. Easily five or six millimetres thick, the surface toasted fragrant, and with every bite the sweetness of the fat and a firm saltiness seep out. Steakhouse bacon is a different animal; please try it.
It goes perfectly with the salad — a piece of hot bacon eaten together with the leaves is pure happiness. The smoke and savour melt into the dressing, and the greenness of the leaves washes the fat away. Starter and drinking snack in one plate. A greedy way to eat it, I admit!
Also unmissable at a steakhouse: the seafood platter!
Fruits of the sea on ice. Lobster, king crab legs, large head-on prawns, whelks, clams, oysters — a splendid line-up that changes daily with the season and the catch. The well-chilled flesh is best in the shellfish and the prawns. Or rather, these are my favourite things, so of course I love them! No heavy sauces needed — the sweetness stands up on the ingredients alone. The crab flakes apart, the prawns snap back, and a squeeze of lemon opens up the sea-smell of the oysters. The cocktail sauce on the side is just a playmate; I rather prefer them plain. A perfect warm-up lap before the steak!
Here it comes! The meat! It looks glorious.
The steak is seared hard, cut, coated in melted butter, and then the whole plate goes back into the fire to finish. It arrives still sizzling on the scorching plate — there are burn marks of fat on the rim. On that hot plate, the doneness slowly climbs from rare towards medium as you eat. That is the particular pleasure of Peter Luger.
The centrepiece is of course the porterhouse — sirloin and fillet sharing a single bone, a huge cut meant for the table to share. The sight alone is overwhelming, and the long-aged USDA Prime lean meat wells up with more savour the more you chew. The staff portion it out for each of you and spoon the buttery meat juices over the top.
There is salt, and there is steak sauce, but it is plenty delicious just as it is.
Ordered separately from the porterhouse, one notch richer: the rib eye. Well-marbled and properly filling. Charred outside, springy and dense inside, and the fat at the edge is meltingly juicy.
With sirloin, fillet and now rib on the table, you can compare three cuts at once!
The sides are part of the fun too.
Chunky thick-cut fries. Toasty outside, fluffy inside, well salted — impossible to stop. Eat them hot, a few at a time. Dip them in the steak juices and they become a proper drinking snack!
And a first-time order this visit: the fresh broccoli.
It is enormous!
It arrives bold and whole. The surface is nicely browned, cooked to the core yet still firm to the bite, with a toasty fragrance and just enough salt. The sweetness of the broccoli comes through clearly.
I have never eaten broccoli this substantial in my life.
Deeply satisfied! That was delicious!!
But in fact what comes next is the real steakhouse finale: dessert time!!
There were many to choose from, so we ordered everything we could manage and shared a bite of each!
Every one of them comes buried under a mountain of cream!
An American pie sharp with lime, sweet and sour. Crisp crust, a smooth and refreshing filling. The balance of acid and sugar is just right!
Layer upon layer of pastry wrapped around sweet stewed apple. The crust is toasty, the inside moist. Breaking the light whipped cream over it as you eat is the way to go — it matches the cinnamon-scented apple beautifully. It is a good deal bigger than the photo suggests!
Apparently a Peter Luger speciality: a pie packed edge to edge with pecans. Toasted nuts and a deep, rich sweetness — not a flavour you often meet in Japan. This one also goes with the cream; if anything the cream softens the sweetness!
A cheesecake in the true New York style. Dense, deeply rich, and yet restrained in sweetness. It is huge — order it to share.
The seasonal fruit was fully ripened mango. Meltingly sweet flesh! Even after rich meat and heavy pies, the juicy sweetness and the chill make it feel weightless.
And that cream just slides down endlessly. It must be terribly fattening, but…
This cream is good!
Well — I ate too much, as always…
So full it hurts…
Still: from salad to seafood, superb steak to dessert — a night of eating exactly what we wanted to eat. The room, the food, the drink: everything was wonderful, a properly luxurious evening. At the end they wrap up the bones for you (apparently they make a fine stock for curry or soup the next day!), and as ever we left with a fistful of the famous chocolate coins!
I hope we can come back next year.
May you meet something good to eat today too.
Peter Luger Steak House Tokyo (steak / Ebisu Station, Daikanyama Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★★☆ 4.0
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
