Steak your claim

It's the shank of the evening, but the opulent dining room of Grill 23 & Bar is still busy. Waiters swirl around our table as four of us share a dry-aged sirloin, reveling in the comfortable ambience, marveling at creamed spinach, swooning over crisp truffle-scented potatoes. Something about the meat, the wine, and the room, once the Salada tea building, makes us feel pampered, a little more well-to-do than when we walked in. It's a most luxurious American experience.

Who doesn't love a steakhouse? Boston has seen a proliferation of new ones in the last few years -- Smith & Wollensky, Fleming's, Abe & Louie's, the Palm, and now Ruth's Chris, which opened its first Boston location in mid-October. And each time the doors open at Grill 23, diners flood through, eager to savor another cut of meat, another dish of creamed spinach, a few more pounds of crisp potatoes in a classic clubby, wood-paneled ambience.

With all the competition, it seemed like the right time to taste steak all over town. Recently, four of us set out on a grand steak crawl to sample the fare at five popular houses. We started at Ruth's Chris Steak House in Old City Hall, then made our way to Capital Grille on Newbury Street. We took a brisk walk down Boylston to Abe & Louie's, then ducked over to Smith & Wollensky in the Castle on Arlington Street. We ended the evening on Berkeley Street at Grill 23. At each, we shared the same cut -- a sirloin (sometimes called a New York strip) -- and tasted creamed spinach, steak fries, and onions. Our wine expert matched wines to red meat (see related story on left). And we soaked up the atmosphere.

At the unfashionably early hour of 5:15 p.m, Ruth's Chris is bustling. The welcome is warm at the front door, and the big and beautiful bar (once Maison Robert's formal dining room) is crammed with businessmen checking messages on BlackBerrys as heated political discussions bounce around the room. Less than two months old, this steakhouse in the refurbished Old City Hall is one of more than 80 restaurants in a chain that began in the 1960s when Ruth Fertel bought a New Orleans steakhouse called Chris and added her name.

We settle along the ornately carved bar and ask the bartender for a New York strip ($40.95 for 16 ounces), creamed spinach, and onion rings. In what seems like minutes, the congenial bartender sets down a super-hot plate of steak (cautioning us several times about its 500-degree temperature) and then demonstrates the proper way to eat it. It all depends on the melted butter, it seems, as he slices a sliver of meat -- hard-seared on the outside and very rare inside -- and then swirls it through the buttery puddle flecked with salt and pepper. The prime beef is cornfed and from the Midwest, he says. Creamed spinach is sufficiently creamy, without masking the taste of the vegetable, and somehow we get sauteed onions rather than the big, puffy onion rings we see passing us by; the onions are delicious, nonetheless. We turn our attention back to the meat, now cooked by the molten butter to the medium rare we requested. The first taste is butter, then meat, then butter again. What was it we came for: steak or butter?

Over at Capital Grille, the clubby room is filling up shortly after 6. This is a storied place in the minds of Boston steak lovers. Its dark paneling has a well-worn look, but we feel like we belong from the moment we step inside. The man beside us is telling the bartender: ''I can't go home this early. My neighbors would call the police if they saw my lights on."

The lore of this place -- now part of a national chain with 20 locations -- comes from the years when Boston boasted only a few upscale steakhouses. Steak-loving friends have spent hours discussing the merits of Capital's meat compared to Grill 23's and whether the creamed spinach stood up to Morton's. To test the legend, we order a dry-aged sirloin ($32.95 for 14 ounces; $35.95 for 20 ounces). Creamed spinach, too, and cottage fries and onion rings.

The steak, Midwestern beef that is butchered and aged on the premises, has an oddly uniform look to the edges, as though it had been cut from a larger one into a neat rectangle. It's a little rarer than ordered, and though it's tender, the initial meaty flavor drops off to bland by the last chew. However, the puffy cottage fries, like souffleed potato wedges, are remarkable, and the lightly battered Vidalia onion strings add to the crisp starchy joy. Which is a good thing, because the creamed spinach tastes as though it spent too much time in a freezer.

As we leave, the chatty guy at the bar is cozying up to a young woman in a minidress. Guess he found a distraction. We head into the chilly night.

By 7:30 p.m. midweek, when many other restaurants are almost vacant, Abe & Louie's is a mob scene. The dining rooms swirl with waiters pushing past tables, and the noise is deafening; so many people are wielding steak knives along the bar that it's downright dangerous to walk by.

This restaurant is owned by Boston's Back Bay Restaurant Group, which also began the Papa Razzi chain and has another Abe & Louie's in Boca Raton, Fla. We squeeze in at the rounded corner of the bar, piling coats onto one stool and standing to eat. The bartender is brusque as he takes our order. He sets out four big glasses with the restaurant's logo etched on the side and then fills each glass high, finishing off the bottle of red wine.

By now, we're dying for something crisp and green, so we add a salad to the standard order of sirloin ($36 for 14 ounces) and creamed spinach. Mistake. Harsh-tasting vinaigrette drowns the limp greens. The creamed spinach doesn't help either, bearing no resemblance to the green leaf vegetable. Steak fries are classic -- big, crisp, and quite good. But we're here for the steak. Alas, the seared exterior is bitter, with tender but tasteless meat. However, the prime beef is close to the medium rare we requested, a quality many value in a steakhouse.

In stark contrast, Smith & Wollensky is almost empty at about 8 p.m. Carved out of the Castle, the 1891 building that once housed Massachusetts' first militia, this steakhouse boasts a beautiful main dining room with a flag-draped balcony. Only one other couple is dining when we get there, though waiters are hurrying platters of meat into a private dining room. This 11-location national chain is known for its American wine list and hearty portions. We walk by the display of impressively large desserts, each lavishly frosted wedge of cake looking grand enough to feed the four of us.

Dessert is not on our agenda. We settle in and chat with the friendly bartender, who takes our order for one steak ($35 for 14 ounces), creamed spinach, and fries. With its brilliant white tile, blazing fire, and beautiful hanging lamps, the stylish dining room looks decidedly un-steakhouse. Our creamed spinach comes in a pretty miniature All-Clad pot, the steak fries in a copper colander lined with linen cheesecloth. The fries pass muster, but the spinach has been creamed past redemption and tastes like gruel.

The steak, though, has real merit: It has a rich, almost organ-meat flavor -- which good beef often does -- and it's much more complex than others we've sampled. There's a vein of fat running through, and the texture is chewy enough to let you know you're eating steak. Later on the phone, a manager says the dry-aged prime beef is mostly from the Midwest. A special cut, $42 for 22 ounces, is butchered on the premises and is usually available, although not listed on the menu. Despite the fact that we've eaten too much meat already, we find ourselves finishing off the plate, discovering another level of flavor in each bite.

One to go. We huddle against the cold and dash to Grill 23. The dining room looks inviting as we hurry in for our last sampling. It's edging toward 10 p.m. -- late by Boston standards -- and we decide to forgo the bar and sink down at a table. Maybe it's the comfort of the padded chairs. Maybe it's the wine, a lovely 2003 Dolcetto d'Alba from winemaker Bruno Giacosa, maybe the pleasant murmur of voices, the crisp linens, or the gleaming silver. We all agree: We've arrived.

The wait staff, a little harried and disorganized, ignores us for a bit, but finally we place our order. It's the same cut as the others: a New York strip (we opt to pay a little more for dry aged -- $42 for 14 ounces), steak fries, and creamed spinach. But, wait, no creamed spinach on the menu. No worries; the waiter promises it can be done.

This 22-year-old restaurant, owned by local developer Kenneth Himmel, serves about 2,800 customers a week and has no other locations. There's no secret to Grill 23's meat. Chef Jay Murray will tell anyone who'll listen that the beef is cornfed slowly on a small ranch in California, then aged on the premises. Recently, Murray says, the menu began to differentiate between wet-aged and dry-aged sirloin. Although he thought customers might balk at the higher price of the dry aged, which is $4 more, the orders for it have doubled, he says. The steak lives up to its reputation, deeply flavorful, sturdily textured. It's evenly cooked medium rare meat that holds its taste as you chew.

''Tater tots" do indeed look like the child's treat, but these are handmade, golden, and crisp, and scented with truffle. Onion rings are splendid, too. But the dark-horse winner is the creamed spinach, so fresh that it still has the leafiness of the vegetable and so rich with cream that it's decadent. ''The only better creamed spinach is the kind you make yourself," says one of my colleagues.

Pushing back from the table, sipping the last of the Dolcetto, we discuss where we've been. Each house has its strong points, but clearly the one we're in is our favorite. And it happens to be the homegrown contender.

Where we went

Abe & Louie's, 793 Boylston St., Boston, 617-536-6300.

Grill 23 & Bar, 161 Berkeley St., Boston, 617-542-2255.

Ruth's Chris Steak House, 45 School St., Old City Hall, Boston, 617-742-8401.

Smith & Wollensky, 101 Arlington St., Boston, 617-423-1112.

The Capital Grille, 359 Newbury St., Boston, 617-262-8900.

Sheryl Julian and Joe Yonan of the Globe staff and correspondent Stephen Meuse contributed to this story.