Angelo's Steak House — Restaurant in Kenilworth

3 1/2 stars

I'm genuinely curious how most people find out about this place. I literally noticed it on Google Maps while I was looking around for something else in the area, and was completely confused, based on my knowledge of Kenilworth. "Wait, isn't this...not where restaurants are? I'm pretty sure this is is in the middle of a bunch of auto repair shops." Well it was, but thankfully it has a giant cow mural painted on the side to distinguish itself from the other establishments in the neighborhood. My top tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality and I came here for lunch on Sunday, deciding to try a new place (we have a regular spot in the area of town that DOES have restaurants). It was easy to find and wasn't COMPLETELY surrounded by auto shops - this is also on the edge of a residential neighborhood, but they definitely do have the monopoly on restaurants here. (My chum did peer along the sides of the building to make sure it was open/safe, but for the record I thought that was unnecessary; as mentioned, there was a cow mural.)

The interior is very black and white, which now in hindsight feels like a bovine homage as well; I literally don't think there was another color factored into their interior design. We walked in around 2PM, I believe, and the restaurant was completely deserted for about the first hour or so. By the time we left, there were maybe two other parties but it was never remotely crowded, and aside from a mildly miserable toddler in the corner, we were the youngest people in there by 20 years. We sat at the bar in view of the Mets game/tribute to Doc Gooden, and had complete control over the TV, which is always a subtle perk.

We'd accidentally eaten some high quality pastries earlier in the afternoon so we weren't in the best position to succeed here, but we still put together a respectable performance. We split some burrata and calamari, as well as the 22-ounce cowboy steak on the specials menu, with mashed potatoes on the side. It's also possible a pitcher of white sangria showed up. My chum liked the food a bit more than I did, but it was decent for what it was. My preference is for the calamari to be on the crispier side, but this was softer than I like it and the texture felt chewier than usual as a result. The steak was tasty (I requested that cut specifically as an homage to Cowboy Carter, but I admit that might not be the best approach when ordering food) but had a fair amount of fat/gristle that needed to be cut off. Honestly I don't know enough about this cut to know if that's unusual or not. The star for me was the mashed potatoes, which were delicious and I wish had been accessible to me when I got my wisdom teeth out. The sangria was made to order (which I liked, but my far more sophisticated chum pointed out limited the ability of the flavors to set), but I enjoyed it. A rosy hue almost immediately showed up on my cheeks.

The service was excellent. We were pretty much the only game in town for a good chunk of our visit, but notwithstanding that, the bartender/waiter was almost always within eyeline/earshot and checked on us regularly. We were both impressed by his knowledge of the specials menu, which was pretty extensive, and he "read the room" well (aka knew we were taking our time and didn't rush us through the experience). Angelo himself showed up once or twice as well to ask how we liked the steak, which was a super nice touch.

This isn't an insanely high-end steakhouse (not an insult) so the price point is pretty competitive, all things considered. There really wasn't anything here though that truly separated Angelo's from any other steakhouse in the area, but it was perfectly fine. It's a very short walk from my chum's HQ, so the convenience and service puts this one just over...

My wife chose steak for our date night and I found Angelo’s in Kenilworth. Fairly close to us and it had decent reviews. I made reservations since it was our first time there and I’m glad I did since they seemed busy. Seemed! They didn’t have a host in front but someone that looked a chef greeted us and showed us to the bar. We waited about 10/15 minutes at the most. Not a dealbreaker for us. They were busy but the place wasn’t crowded, they just didn’t have enough staff. The staff was nice and friendly despite being taxed and limited. We had the crab cakes and lobster bisque, both were ok to start. Then we shared the porterhouse. The specials menu had a portor that featured a sauce, neither of us are a fan of sauce on steak so I asked specifically if the regularly served portor would also have the sauce. Server said no, but apparently each steak they make has a sauce unless you say you “ask for it plain”. I didn’t think I was vague about not wanting sauce but if it’s good then I figured it wouldn’t matter much. It wasn’t lol. To be fair it was cooked well enough(medium rare) just not flavorful which to me meant the secret was not in the sauce 😆. My wife wanted to try another glass of wine which I noticed the menu had but for some reason the server said they didn’t have a list. Again, technically not a wine list but your menu has wines listed on it. He suggested a cab since they didn’t have a Malbec and that wasn’t very good either. She was hungry so she powered through lol. I had a couple of pieces of the steak and some veggies. We can turn the most bland experience into a party so we made the most of our night but we had little help from Angelo’s. I think I will probably check it out again in a few months to see if they’ve changed anything. For now, it’s off the date night list. Hope your experience is better. For two people the pricing was fair but there just wasn’t...

We were a group of eight adults and only 2 of the meals were cooked the way they were supposed to be. My husband and I had steaks and they were supposed to be medium rare but they were well done and considering how long we waited to get them it wasn't worth sending back. And the steak juice in the dish was burnt with a little bit of a bitter taste because of that. Our friends dinners... the halibut and vodka sauce dish which was very dry, the shrimp scampi didn't have any real garlic in it and she ate about ⅓ of it, the cowboy steak was also supposed to be medium rare as well but it was well done. The salmon dishes were ok. And for a Saturday night we were only two tables in the whole restaurant which was a little concerning but we all decided to give it the benefit of the doubt considering it was already 8:30pm. The only saving grace was the appetizers which were VERY good especially the Applewood pork and the Mozzarella and carrozza. And we waited quite a while for drink too. I'm always a full supporter of small out of the way restaurants because they can be very surprising and rewarding but this was just...