Monday, April 10, 7:00 pm
Members $90, guests, $115

Few restaurants inspire the loyalty of New Yorkers like a steakhouse. We’ll cross the Williamsburg Bridge, brave the midtown crowds—anything for a nice juicy bone-in rib-eye at our favorite chophouse. That’s why it takes a really unique newcomer to lure us away from our beloved standbys. Enter Christos, the new Greek-inspired steakhouse in Astoria, where chef Mina Newman has locals celebrating and carnivorous Manhattanites crossing a different bridge for their porterhouse for two. But they’d better hurry. “It won’t stay under the radar for long,” wrote Peter M. Gianotti in Newsday. “Christos is terrific.”

Newman brings considerable talent and experience in both Mediterranean cooking and classic steakhouse fare to Christos. A graduate of New York City College of Technology’s culinary program, Newman’s cooking is informed by her travels throughout Morocco, Spain, Italy, and the South of France. She was on the opening team of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City and worked under Claude Troisgros, scion of the famed French chef dynasty, at his New York outpost, CT. But it was at Layla, which Ruth Reichl of the New York Times awarded two stars in 1996, that Newman made a name for herself. In 2000 Newman took the executive chef post at Dylan Prime, the chic and successful Tribeca venue that broke the stodgy steakhouse formula. She went on to work as a consultant at Greek restaurant Avra in New York, and became the manager of Thalassa, another Greek eatery in Tribeca, before starting Boutique, her own catering company.

As consulting chef at Christos, Newman has created a menu of updated classics that bring together the best of both steakhouse and Greek fare (think Kobe-style steak tartare with a quail egg, and grilled giant head-on shrimp wrapped in grape leaves). In Newman’s hands, both culinary genres have become fresh again, which suits steak-loving New Yorkers just fine. With a little innovation and a lot of talent, Newman is developing a loyal following of her own.