Quality Eats

It’s one of the hottest places for dinner in NYC located in one of the most lively areas: Greenwich Village. So I was glad to get a seat without a reservation. Unfortunately that’s be reflected in the servers’ arrogant behavior. Starter and main course came at the same time. The starter was a very tasty composition of sea food and grapefruit. The main course was less successful: small slices of almost chewy steak with white beet (mangel). From my point of view that place is overestimated and expensive, although it’s a cool location.

Monday night 8pm reservation with friends from London. Hostess was lovely. Waited for others to arrive at the bar and the bartender was helpful and friendly. Bar itself is wood with little pictures and messages engraved (hint: if you are interested in design and décor, read the story on the last page of the drinks menu).
Cocktails were interesting sounding but were a little lacking. At the table we had the Crab avocado appetizer which was a decent size, but the citrus was a bit overpowering. Stand out was the Don Ameche steak medium rare — excellent! Nice Argentinian Merlot by glass or bottle went down a treat.
The staff were very helpful and accommodating, and were fine when we split the bill 5 ways with 5 credit cards.
Will definitely be back…

Absolutely delicious! And the service was impeccable!
Some highlights were the hush puppies, the hanger steak — with this amazing «crème-​brûlée-​like» corn side, the octopus and the fries… Well everything I had was amazing.
Ps: Save room for dessert… It is worth it

This is the place to go to impress out of towners. If you don’t have a reservation, just go, put your name in and have a drink at the bar. It’s worth it.
DO NOT MISS:
–Bacon PB&J appetizer
–Crabmeat appetizer
–Any of the steak (it comes with crème brûlée –what what???)
I like sharing a bunch of plates, so I get to try more things. Dessert is a wacky ice cream sundae. The Bday and Smores ones are the best.
Here’s why it’s one of my fave date night spots:

Was in NYC on business and Quality Eats was listed on the «hot new restaurant» list. Sat at the bar, which has a great atmosphere with hand carved graffiti. Menu pretty straight forward — this is a meat forward place. Friendly bartender recommended the Bacon Appetizer — which comes with, bacon, and a home made peanut butter. Was very good.
For entrée I ordered the Short rib steak. I’m typically a rib eye guy and have only had short ribs braised– but this was a great choice. Served on a long rib, it’s packed with flavor and impressively tender. These guys know their meat. Was served with a creamed corn «crème brûlée». Just eat it.

It was raining. I tried to do more work, but couldn’t so I decided to stop at Quality Eats for a late lunch/​early dinner and I couldn’t be more pleased.
The Rock Shrimp Chowder was buttery, citric and peppered with just the right amount of spice. I love Octopus in NY and it was perfect here, served with lentils, white beans and just the right amount of everything to make it memorable. The Banana ice cream dessert did what all finales should.
QE is small, vibrant and filled with staff who want to help you enjoy. Don’t wait for a rainy afternoon to visit. Go now!

Reserved a table for 5 here and we literally pigged out at this place. Everything on the menu were super yummy and I don’t think there was anything we didn’t like. We did family style because the portions were on the smaller side.
Drinks–
1) Key Monkey was really pretty to look at and tasted delicious!
2) Quality Mule was your good olé’ classic ginger beer.
3) Phuket — This drink was weird. It came in a bowl and the drink was literally full of ice. Underneath all that, everything tasted like Adult lemonade.
Appetizers–
1) Bacon w/​Peanut Butter — MUST order! It had a spicy dressing that was absolutely delicious!
2) Spinach and Artichoke Hush Puppies — Very moist and great appetizer to start with.
3) Monkey Bread — Interesting and the special butter they used definitely made it better.
4) Crab & Avocado — Yummy! Crab pieces were plump!
Entrees–
1) Brisket for 2, Skirt Steak, and Long Bone — All really great seasoning on the meat. I would have to say out of all of them, the Long Bone had the most flavor. What I loved most about these dishes were the corn crème brûlée it came with. I wish it wasn’t so small cause I loved it!
2) Octopus dish was fantastic too! Pretty soft and chewy and well seasoned.
Desserts
1) Bar Snack was our favorite cause who doesn’t like buttered popcorn ice cream with spicy peanuts/​pretzels, chocolate covered potato chips and beer caramel.
2) Stick Toffee Pudding Pan with butterscotch and vanilla ice cream for 2 was a huge portion
3) Chocolate covered grasshopper was my least favorite cause I’m not a fan of mint ice cream but it was very refreshing.
Love to the try more of the Quality Meats chains!

I really liked this place, the only problem is how hard it is to get in without a reservation. We lucked out and got a table early on a Friday night, but it wasn’t looking so good upon our first try.
The ambience is pretty dark. There is a bar in the front and tables in both a front and back room. The servers were very knowledgable about every menu item and welcoming when asked questions. The steak here is really affordable and the bacon appetizer with PB& jalapeño jelly was like nothing I have ever tasted. I would definitely come back if it were easier to grab a table!

WOW, I love this place. I made reservations for 5:30pm on a Friday afternoon– they were just opening up. So we opted to sit at the bar… for 3 hours. :) Initially, I’ve passed this place up at least 3 times while picking out a steak house and in the end, it was one of the best decision of our trip.
The place opened for about 6 months the hype is real and the food is amazing. I believe it started from Quality Meat & Quality Italian so basically it’s a steakhouse in disguise.
Our favorite cocktail of the night and apparently everyone else’s is the Key Money. It has macerated strawberries and cucumber ice cubes — such a refreshing summer drink. Being there for 3 hours, we also ordered the Smokin’ Grass and the Hemingway Spritz but Key Money tops it all.
For dinner, we had the Crab & Avocado $ 17, Long-​Bone Short Rib Steak $ 27, The Don Ameche $ 29, Butternut Brioche Bread Pudding $ 8…
The food was amazing but I must warn you about the long bone short rib steak… it’s not for the weak of heart nor jaw. It is very chewy so don’t expect ribeye tender steak on this bone. I had mine cooked medium but had to send it back for medium well because it was medium rare (this could be from the thick cut bone). However, flavor was delicious and yea I may have shift my jaw a bit but thankfully it didn’t lock it. :) The cream corn brulee was soo good, it was so creamy and buttery and you get that nice hard coating of sugar on top. I was in heaven.
The Bartender told us a funny story about that corn brulee; a customer had order the same platter and he had smeared that brulee on top of the steak assuming it was butter! He said that it tasted funny together but it was still good. LOL
The Done Ameche with the foie gras toast was something wonderful in my mouth. The only wish would be more steak, there were only 4 pieces but still delicious. Honestly we didn’t even need the brioche bread pudding because the food and the portion was perfect.
Lastly… we had to try their dessert
This Sh*t Is Bananas. It contains Roasted Banana Ice Cream, Peanut Butter Caramel, Candied Bacon, Cinnamon Toast and it is addicting. I couldn’t stop eating it. It was worth every freaking calories in each spoon I scooped up.
This place is obviously my favorite because my review has gotten quite lengthy. But I love the vibe here. It’s young, it’s fun, it’s not pretentious and not once did our bartender made us felt like we needed to leave. I can not wait to be back here and I can only hope they are thriving each day!

Holy hell. Get ready to come with sweat pants because you will not stop eating. Everything in this place from starters to dessert is absolutely delicious.
When you walk in the restaurant is separated in two parts. The bar and side tables that have the music bumping and then the back area which is a couple of tables with less noise. Depending on your mood each section is fun. The back area allows you to talk.
Food wise, you can’t go wrong with any choice. Everything our table ordered and all the other items I saw floating around looked delicious. Here’s what I recommend:
Apps: spinach cream hush puppies. Comes with three huge pieces, butternut squash bread pudding. Wow! And of course the monkey bread! The bread has three types of cheeses and served with bacon butter. Sounds overly indulgent, but it’s absolutely worth it.
Entrée wise we got the brisket for two and the patty melt burger. The briskest was huge probably could’ve fed three people. The meat was flavored and cooked perfectly. It fell right off the fork! Pattly melt was huge. Definitely a dish to share. I opted for spice slaw on the side and thank goodness because it’s a lot of slaw.
Dessert wise we stuck with the dressed up scoops! To be honest, ehh. They cole presented really cute, but the actual flavors were basic. The birthday cake scoop was only good for the actual birthday cake pieces. The actual chocolate icecream was okay. The smores scoop another disappointment. Looked pretty, but tasted just okay.
I have to say this is a great restaurant in the west village area. Def recommend for a date night, group out or if you feel like getting your food on!

Fantastic meal. Even after waiting for 3 full hours for our party to be seated, I’d still be willing to do it again.
Biggest downside was that we felt like our waitress was trying to upsell us the whole meal. After ordering MORE than enough food, she insisted we get 2 of the don Ameche steaks. We absolutely did not need more than 1 for our group (we shared everything) and the steak was the last thing we would have wanted 2 of. On the other hand, 2 orders of the pb&j bacon. please!
On to the goods… everything else:
+ Patty Melt Club Burger — more like a fancy sandwich /​grilled cheese. but ORDER THIS
+ Grilled Nueske’s Bacon (peanut butter, jalepeno jelly) — YES. The table’s favorite
+ Crab & Avocado — unmemorable next to some of the other more over-​the-​top items
+ Brown-​bag Curly fries
+ Don ameche steak (x2) — underwhelmed
+ Baked Potato Monkey bread — enough said
+ Butternut Brioche Bread pudding — my personal favorite. So flavorful
Dessert:
+ S’more ice cream scoop: burnt marshmallow ice cream with graham cracker shortbread and fudge swirls
+ Sticky Toffee pudding pan for 2: another upsell here — this will feed a small country. We are not a group to leave a bite of dessert left on the table, yet the 6 of us could not finish this pudding. Nevertheless, it was incredibly good. Warm butterscotch, vanilla ice cream, warm toffee pudding… so good.

I was truly looking so forward to this meal, but I don’t think I would go back for many reasons.
1. The place is super tiny and not comfortable.
2. The food is mediocre, and in my opinion priced a bit high for the portion sizes.
With that being said, I am glad I did try it, but wish there being so many restaurants in the city with a unique menu (brunch), I’m not running back there anytime soon craving any of their dishes.
We started off with their famous bacon dish, which is essentially 2 slabs of thick bacon cooked in a peanut jalapeño sauce. The sauce was good, definitely made the dish, but it was very fatty. $ 15.00
I ended up getting the lump crab meat over a bed of citrus and avocado. I’m not a fan of cilantro… I asked if it could be made without, but they have it pre-​made already. The woman told me they hardly use any cilantro, but it was ALL throughout the dish. Definitely wouldn’t recommend $ 13.00
My sister got the Caesar salad $ 13.00(?). That was a joke. She asked for grilled chicken on top and the waitress forgot to add that onto her meal. Luckily we weren’t satisfied at all with the restaurant or meal rather so she ended up doing us a favor by forgetting it altogether. There are three small little wedges of lettuce with a tiny bit of dressing on it and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Nothing with nothing.
My friend got the steak and eggs. He enjoyed that, but I wasn’t in the mood to try. The steak looked good, and most people were ordering steak and eggs, so maybe that’s more of their signature dishes for brunch.
One of the best dishes we ended up getting was actually a side dish. Their chicken sausage was on point and if I did go back I would get that again, and maybe even double it up. It comes with 3 small sausages for the table. Was just enough.
Their cocktails are made well. We got a dry Bloody Mary, which was supposedly made differently to their regular Bloody Mary in that it came with some kind of special bacon the guy had mentioned. There was not an ounce of bacon in there; however.
We wanted to get dessert, but by the time we were done we were too full. Also, keep in mind that if you only drink skimmed milk or fat free milk with your coffee, they only have regular milk, so we couldn’t enjoy coffee with our brunch.

I heard the line gets insane so I came by around 5:45 right after they opened and was able to get seated immediately. Apparently a little over half the tables are for walk-​ins, so the best bet is to probably try and snag a reservation otherwise. The wait was 1:30 hours by the time I left around 7:30.
Quality eats is supposed to be the cooler, hipper sister to their 2 restaurants in midtown. And it definitely feels much less corporate. The menu also felt a lot fresher and more seasonal, granted I haven’t been to quality meats or Italian in a while.
The food was a mixture of hits and just ok in my opinion. I loved the steak tartar and beet tabbouleh here — so flavorful and slightly different from the run-​of-​the-​mill. On the other hand I’d skip the hush puppies, unless you’re an avid fan and always get them. They were kind of soggy and really oily.
Oh and the birthday cake dessert is the cutest thing ever. They even give you matched to light the candle on top and have a little celebration even if it’s not your birthday.

Go here for brunch!
I had an extremely satisfying meal here a couple weekends ago. We started with the potato monkey bread which came with three different types of butter spreads — bloody mary, bacon, and smoked salmon. They were all delicious but my favorite had to be the bloody mary. The monkey bread was pillowy soft and full of buttery goodness. My friend and I shared the poached eggs with spinach beignets and the LA eggs as our entrees. The spinach beignets were excellent — similar to falafel but creamy inside. They were even better mixed with the yolk from the eggs. The LA eggs entrée was pretty standard, but the real standout of the dish was their homemade guac. Some of the best I’ve had in recent memory. Even though we clearly had enough food, we devoured a side of their excellent potato skin home fries after.
If you want to snag a seat, arrive before noon on a Sunday before the place fills up with boozy brunchers.

My friend and i have birthdays a month a part so we got together between them to come here and have a co-​birthday dinner and I have to say, this is one of the best meals I can recall having in a long time!
She snagged an early reservation (6:00 pm) and the place was already moderately full. By the time we left around 7:15 it was packed! The great thing was that it was lively but in the back where we were it wasn’t too loud.
We skipped appetizers because we knew dessert was on the horizon so we just got right to the food. Well, I started with an exceptional cocktail called «Home Alone” – bourbon, bitters and cinnamon syrup. It was great.
For food she had the pork chop (and she gave me a piece and it was excellent, not to mention ginormous) and I had the Don Ameche, which is four slices of filet over crostini brushed with chicken pâté and cooked onions. The steak itself was out of this world. It was really, really good. I mean, moaning after every bite good. The crostini and onions were equally delicious.
For sides we had green beans (good) and scalloped sunchokes (excellent).
Then to dessert… she had the gingerbread man, which she enjoyed. I had the birthday cake, which was chocolate malted ice cream topped with cake bit and frosting. It was very good, the only issue was the way that the cake bits (about the size of a sugar cube) sat on top of the ice cream, as soon as you put your spoon in it, you knocked a bunch of cake bits on the table, thereby rendering them unedible. I wish they served the little cup of ice cream on a plate so you can catch those cake bits and eat them.
Service was very good. Top notch all around.
I will be back to try the octopus and the sticky toffee pudding, which looked great when I saw each of them on other tables! Note, those are two separate items, they don’t have one item called «Octopus with Sticky Toffee Pudding».

3 hours later and my mouth is still watering thinking about the steak here!
I got the Bavette cut and my dinner companion got the Hangar cut. Both were extremely well flavored. The Hangar is slightly more fatty/​marbalized and the Bavette cut is just a tad leaner.
We got the Potato Monkey Bread — no need to add to the numerous rave reviews. That bacon butter… nom nom nom
If a restaurant has green beans (haricots verts if you wanna be fancy) — I get them and judge the restaurant on how well they are cooked. The green beans here– perfection! Crunchy yet cooked, salty and slightly buttery. If you are looking for something green to balance out all the heavy meat, this is a solid choice.
Can’t wait to return!

Let me preface this by saying I LOVE all the Quality restaurants. Never had a meal I didn’t freak out over between Italian, Meats and Park Avenue.
That being said, their new spot is just OK.
Spinach hush puppies fell flat. Patty melt was good but fell apart in my hands. This special dessert everyone likes to instagram is really just chocolate ice-​cream with frosting on top (and those fun looking cake croutons? they’re pretty dry). I was thoroughly impressed with the grilled bacon app. The bacon-​peanut butter-​jalapeño jelly combo is A+.
I would suggest stopping in for drinks and apps. Not really worth spending a whole meal here and the bar is engraved with all kinds of fun drawings and phrases you’ll want to see.

When I told people I was going to Quality Eats for dinner, they said, «I love love love Quality MEATS. So good.» If you plan on going here, there’s a 75% chance you will also get that response. I’ll bet you a piece of bacon. Since this is a fairly new restaurant and more people [obviously] know more about the legendary Quality Meats, it makes sense.
A lot of reviews say this is the «sister» to Quality Meats but after my dinner there, I’d like to count it as an equal. Quality Meats, be afraid! Your so-​called sister might be more successful than you in a couple of years! Ooooohhhhh.
First, the drinks are delectable, refreshing, and stunning. I ordered the Key Money. If you love refreshing cocktails, get this. It has CUCUMBER CUBES.
We ordered the potato monkey bread for starters (yes, they can do this even if its listed under sides). It was good but would I order this again? Probably not. It’s the equivalent to the kind of bread you’d get for free at an Italian restaurant. I will say though that I loved the bacon butter, but maybe that’s only because I think of myself as a kind of female Ron Swanson.
If there is one entrée that you should order, or if there’s one thing that you should take away from this review (which is now getting rather long), it’s that you need to order the Don Ameche. It comes on top of toasted bread with a tasty pâté spread. The first thought to pop into my head after the first bite was, «I can die happy now.»
Also, if you’re belly happens to be craving a dessert, I’d go with This Sh*t Is Bananas. It has candied bacon. *Drops mic*

We made a booking for 5:30 Sunday since it was the only table available. We arrived late at 5:45 to an empty dining room, we apologized to the host and he said, «oh well it was for 5:30!» I responded «we promise we will eat quickly!» A strange interaction but I was too excited to let this get to me.
We were seated but served after others. Hopefully after a few more months the servers get the hang of things.
— ⁴⁄₅ Starting with the beets tabouleh was delicious but very small portion
— ³⁄₅ short rib, was a rib. Hardly any meat for $ 25 but Cooked well but very tough
— ¹⁄₅ Mediterranean Branzino — it came chargrilled with a small cup of olive and artichokes. Gross. Totally over powered the fish and was difficult to eat.
⁴⁄₅ Monkey bread. Worth trying but he bacon butter is very strong.
Beautiful décor but nothing worth coming back for.

I hate to throw around the word «perfect» when describing something. It’s a cop out, technically a lie and completely subjective all in one. So while I can’t say that this meal was perfect, it was five stars on all fronts. Worth the hype. Worth the wait time. Worth every penny.
Despite only being open for a month or so, Quality Eats already has wait times of over an hour during the normal dinner window. I’d say that’s pretty telling of, you guessed it, the quality. Thankfully, there are quite a number of good bars around this area, so putting your name down and getting a leisurely drink elsewhere (Happiest Hour and Slowly Shirley are right across the street) isn’t too cumbersome at all. We put our name down around 7:45 and were texted around 8:30 – we were both starting to toe the line between hungry and hangry so the summoning was timed perfectly.
Hard to really nail down a vibe here. I suppose «trendy» might be a good word. I’m inclined to say it’s on the intimate side, but the volume and table spacing (or lack thereof) kind of take away from that. So maybe I can’t pick a Unilocal adjective for the ambiance of this place, but what I can say is that it’s surprisingly affordable given the, wait for it, quality. Steaks, as well as the rest of the mains, are all in the $ 20 range. We ended up ordering quite a lot of food for two people so our bill wasn’t too appealing to the eyes, but we easily could’ve done with less food. Read on.
Okay I was a bit of a tease there. Service first. Our waitress was awesome. Attentive, down to earth and incredibly helpful when it came to wine pairings. The both of us aren’t typically steak-​eaters, so we needed some guidance in the early goings. Not that she was really in control of this, but the food also came out at the ideal pace. We had a decent amount of time to really enjoy our appetizers, and while we were on the last few morsels, the mains arrived. Gotta love it. Now for the good stuff. We ordered:
–Roasted Beet Tabbouleh w/​Kabocha Squash Hummus (A+)
My picture doesn’t do this justice. I mean, how pretty do you really want a dish like this too look, anyway? For «just» tabbouleh and hummus, the strong flavors here were really impressive. Savory and sweet. The tabbouleh was light and fruity, the hummus was decadent and creamy. My only issue was that I wanted MORE. More of the spreads, more of the delicious focaccia-​esque bread.
–Crab & Avocado (A)
Considering the steak we were about to consume, getting lighter fare for our apps was a great way to go. I know this is supposed to be a steak place, but they do really really good seafood here. Debatably better (though I don’t know much about steak). This dish, like just about everything on the menu here, had wonderfully clean and simple flavors. I think you’ll start to see a theme here. The citrus (grapefruit and maybe some type of orange) was a lovely complement to the whole thing. I suppose the cilantro could be a deal-​breaker for some (a good number of people harbor and intense hatred of cilantro for whatever reason), but it’s not at all overpowering.
–The Don Ameche — filet mignon (A)
I actually really wanted to short tWe ordered this medium rare, which they recommend. Though I never eat steak, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Instead of getting your usual cut of filet mignon, this comes in four small slices – perfect to share! Tender, juicy, yummy. I was actually pushing for the short rib in place of this, but they were out of it on this particular night. This seems like a pretty solid second choice.
–Grilled Octopus w/​Rice Beans, Beluga Lentils (A++)
Easily my favorite dish of the evening. Saying this seems blasphemous considering Quality Eats is a steakhouse, but it’s hard to do octopus this well. Just slightly crispy on the outside, tender and meaty on the inside. I was also a huge fan of the preparation: as you can see from my picture, the beans and lentils didn’t just sit on the side, seemingly ostracized – they were very much a player in this dish, hugging the octopus dearly. Though it’s just one tentacle, the plate is a very hearty one. Meaty, earthy, impeccably seasoned. This is up there with the best octopus I’ve ever had.
Though I haven’t been to any of the other Quality spots, I can still confidently say that Quality Eats can stand on its own easily, and with grace. The food, though «simple», is executed… I almost want to say «perfectly». Come here with people who are willing to share. Though it’s certainly not mandatory, you’re going to want to try as much as you can here.