Food influencer @grubwithgreg went all in on a recent visit to Lucky’s Steakhouse in Los Angeles, ordering nearly a dozen items off the menu to find out whether the restaurant’s reputation holds up. The star of the video is the New York Pepper Steak, a $89 cut coated in cracked pepper and finished with a rich cognac sauce, which he pairs with a side of skinny onion rings and calls “heavenly.”
The full spread he worked through also included French onion soup gratinée, a grilled artichoke, sautéed Dos Pueblos abalone, a wedge salad with bacon, chicken pot pie with morels, pan roasted half chicken, Dover sole meunière, and broccolini, along with the restaurant’s signature “Mr. Lucky” dish. By the end of the video, he says it’s a meal he could eat every single day, a strong endorsement from someone whose entire feed is built around rating restaurants.
@grubwithgreg
Lucky’s Steakhouse has built a loyal following over the years with locations in Los Angeles, Montecito, Malibu, SoHo, and East Hampton, positioning itself as a classic American steakhouse with a slightly coastal, celebrity-friendly edge. A New York Pepper Steak, sometimes called steak au poivre, is a French bistro staple: a well-marbled cut crusted in coarsely cracked black pepper, seared hard, then finished with a pan sauce built from the fond, cream, and often a splash of cognac or brandy that gets flambéed off before serving.
What makes the dish technically tricky is balance. Too much pepper and the dish turns harsh and one-note; too little and it is just a steak with cream sauce. The crust needs to be aggressive enough to bite through the richness of the cognac cream without overpowering the beef itself, which is part of why it tends to show up on the menus of steakhouses that take their classic French technique seriously rather than as a flashy special.
If a trip to a high-end steakhouse like this one is in your future, a few practical notes can help you get the most out of it. Pepper steak is traditionally a two-person dish when ordered as an entrée at this price point, since portions at upscale steakhouses tend to run larger than they look on the menu description. Pairing it with a lighter side, like the broccolini or a simple green salad, helps cut the richness of the cream sauce rather than doubling down with another heavy starch.
Wine pairing also matters more with pepper steak than with a plain grilled cut. The pepper crust and cream sauce call for something with enough acidity and tannin to cut through the fat, which is why a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Northern Rhône Syrah tends to be the go-to recommendation from sommeliers at steakhouses that serve the dish regularly.
On cost, a meal like the one in this video, built around a single $89 entrée plus six or seven shared sides and appetizers, easily runs past $300 for two people once tax and tip are factored in. That is standard territory for a high-end American steakhouse, and it is worth checking a restaurant’s menu online ahead of time so there are no surprises when the bill arrives, especially at a multi-location group known for premium pricing across every city it operates in.
Reservations are also worth making well in advance for a restaurant with this kind of social media following. A single viral review can send a noticeable spike in walk-in traffic to a restaurant’s open tables, and high-end steakhouses in particular tend to book out days or weeks ahead on weekends regardless of whether a video has been circulating.
Whether or not this exact location is within driving distance, the broader lesson from this kind of deep-dive food review holds: ordering widely across a menu, rather than sticking to one “safe” dish, is still the best way to actually judge whether a restaurant’s reputation is earned.
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