Steak House

Please welcome Elevation Burger, the latest contender for virtue-burger honors, debuting now in suburban Wynnewood, but eyeing - hungrily, one presumes - real estate in Rittenhouse Square, and in no particular order, Princeton, West Chester, Willow Grove, and Cherry Hill. It has single-handedly raised the ante in the (so to speak) greener-meat niche. Elevation Burgers are not merely fresh-ground, or all-beef, or naturally raised; they are - top this! - "100 percent organic, grass-fed, free-range beef.

The red-meat race to build Center City's biggest, most luxurious chophouse has dominated the dining headlines of the last year. But an insatiable devotion to grilled beef is hardly confined to the urban limits. There are already enough destinations in the suburbs that one can drive an hour in most any direction from City Hall and come upon an independent steak house of some distinction. Head north and you'll hit the retrofitted church hall of Marsha Brown's Southern grill in New Hope.

Win and Sutida Somboonsong, fresh off last month's opening of Azie on Main in Villanova, expect to roll out Parker's Prime steak house next week. Like all of the couple's restaurants, Parker's Prime (4755 West Chester Pike, Newtown Square, 610-353-5353) has an Asian sensibility. That is, while chef Takao Iinuma's menu is built around American-style steaks (filet, rib-eye, New York strip), some sides and sauces borrow from Japanese cuisine, such as the ginger sesame sauce on the asparagus.

Inside the magnificent palace of commerce that was once the First Pennsylvania Bank, diners in pinstripes order prime porterhouse steaks or sip espresso martinis at the sinuous Del Frisco's bar. Average tab: $90, including $48.95 for that 24-ounce porterhouse. Outside the building, men in polo shirts, most of them owners of local construction companies, hand out fliers that say: "Enjoy your meal. When it comes time to pay, please ask the General Manager why the bills for construction remain unpaid.

It's the age of the duopoly, in which two restaurant concepts share a building, a liquor license, management, and many fixed costs. While chains mostly practice this (such as McCormick & Schmick and William Douglas Steakhouse, and Blue2O and Chili's, both in Cherry Hill), an independent team is giving it a whirl across from the Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Horsham with the new naBrasa , a Brazilian steak house, and Iron Abbey , a gastropub. The site (680 N. Easton Rd.)

Another steak house is coming down the pike. Win and Sutida Somboonsong - who own Mikado Thai Pepper in Ardmore, Flavor in Wayne, Azie in Media, and Teikoku in Newtown Square - signed a deal for the old Roux 3 site (4755 West Chester Pike) by the United Artists cineplex in Newtown Square. Parker's Prime , a steak house named after the Somboonsongs' youngest child, Parker, will have a wine list put together by winemaker/importer Gino Razzi of Penns Woods Winery. A late summer/early fall 2009 opening is planned.

The team behind Radnor's 333 Belrose has ventured to a former paper mill on the banks of the Brandywine Creek with a steak house called Firecreek (20 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, 610-269-6000). Opening is expected next week. Developers Tom Deignan and Kevin Silverang, partnered with chef Carlo DeMarco and Robert Donaldson, hired designer Lauren Thomsen, who used some of the mill's stone, as well as cogs and wheels, in the contemporary decor, which features an open kitchen.

The absurdity of blowing $100-plus-plus on a steak dinner in the depths of a near-depression is apparently not as absurd as it sounds. You wouldn't know the country is spiraling into a historic economic funk after witnessing a few meals at the new Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House. Literally hundreds of diners have been churning each night through the columned grandeur of its red-draped dining room, mowing down $89 rib steaks and $195 bottles of wine (Del Frisco's "sweet spot," according to its wine director)

Before we bury the dear departed Striped Bass beneath a stampede of hungry meat-eaters, let us first pay tribute to the lasting splash of the big fish. In terms of a culinary legacy, there's no denying its impact: In the last year alone, no fewer than 10 chefs reviewed in this column worked at some point behind the lines of Striped Bass' open kitchen. Of course, its closing last year and recent replacement by a less-adventurous concept, a steak house called Butcher & Singer, marked the beginning of the end of an era, too, adding a scratch to the gold-plated culinary ambition of Walnut Street's Restaurant Row. That veneer has since taken a few more scuffs with the recent closing of Brasserie Perrier and news that Susanna Foo, ever the survivor, wasn't above starting to offer home delivery.

It was Saturday, preview night for Union Trust, the latest front in the city's untimely steak wars, and the shots of Sobieski vodka were suitably chilled after sluicing through onion-domed ice sculptures that recalled - given the moment - the gilded end days of czarist Russia. Outside at Seventh and Chestnut were the requisite lines of invitees, the up-sweep of floodlights, cadres of hop-to-it valets. Inside, vaulted ceilings, once a signature of Jack Kellmer's jewelers, soared like a cathedral's, a breathtaking 47 feet.