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3251 Prospect St. NW
(202) 342-6258
Hours of Operation and Prices
Dinner: M-Sat 5:30-11, Sun 5-10; Entrees: $17-$30
Other Information
• Credit Cards: All major
• Reservations: Recommended
• Dress: Jacket & tie
• Parking: Complimentary valet at dinner
• Handicapped accessible
• Another Morton's is at 8075 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, Va. (703) 883-0800, and look for a third, in Washington, at Connecticut Ave. & L St.
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A great steak exists. It's a matter of breeding, then proper aging, cutting to sufficient thickness and grilling on a hot enough fire to sear the surface. You verify these truths at Morton'S if you order the porterhouse and ask for it black-and-blue (seared yet near raw) or at least specify you want it crusty if you order it cooked rare or medium rare. The meat is silken and tender, with gutsy, beefy flavor. Even the lamb chops, cut double thick, have a flavor that today's lamb often seems to have lost in its refinement.
Morton's menu comes on a cart, a display of raw steaks, veal chop, butterflied chicken, swordfish and giant lobster. So you can see the quality before you order. Notice that the potatoes are Idahos, and don't neglect them. The shredded cake of hash browns is as crisp as potato chips, oozing butter and outrageously compelling. Potato skins are no slouch either. Your eyes should warn you, however, that those "beefsteak tomatoes" have a wintry pallor most of the year.
And Morton's hasn't mastered cooking vegetables either. Among appetizers, the shrimp cocktail is big but no better than the usual tasteless crustaceans. I used to love the smoked salmon, but recently it tasted only of salt, not of fish or smoke. Scallops wrapped in bacon with apricot chutney would be a fine prelude to a light entree, but they're a bit much to precede a magnificent steak. Likewise, the warm, oozy chocolate cake or the creamy key lime pie would be welcome after many dinners, but you'd have to be a farm hand to appreciate them after this steak-and-potatoes fare. This is a meal to take slowly: Sink into your curved leather banquette and watch the waiters' spiel repeated around the dining room, observe the suited businessmen and the T-shirted tourists eat like lumberjacks, sip your red wine and ruminate over the role of prime beef in making America a world power.
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