Every steak on our menu comes from the same Kansas ranch we've worked with since we opened. Whole primals arrive weekly, are broken down in-house, and are dry-aged in our custom Himalayan-salt room until the crust turns amber and the flavor turns deep. We cook to temperature — not to a schedule — over white oak and almond, and rest each cut on warmed plates before it reaches the pass.
The house cornerstone. Aged long enough for the fat to turn nutty and the crust to develop a distinctly earthy, almost bourbon-like edge. Cut on the bone from the sixth rib, finished with sea salt and a knife's-touch of bone marrow butter, served with the natural jus.
A single medallion trimmed from the heart of the tenderloin, seared hard in a cast iron pan and finished under the hearth. Served over a black-pepper reduction with a quenelle of tallow-whipped Bordelaise. For guests who prefer the leanest cut without sacrificing depth.
The strip and the tenderloin on a single T-bone, carved tableside on a heated maple board. Presented with three finishing salts — smoked Maldon, pink Himalayan, and our own house-cured beef salt — and a jug of pan drippings. A dish designed to be shared slowly.
Certified A5 wagyu strip loin from a single farm in Miyazaki Prefecture, offered by the ounce and prepared over binchōtan on a small grate at the pass. The intramuscular marbling is such that only a few ounces are recommended per person. Served with lava salt, wasabi root, and grated fresh horseradish.
A frenched long-bone ribeye cut thick and aged past our usual mark for a heavier, more assertive profile. Cooked long over a lower flame, rested twice, and carved off the bone at the pass. Comes with a pool of house Béarnaise and an ember-roasted shallot. Not a small dish.
A center-cut roast of tenderloin, seared and finished in cast iron, sliced tableside into thick coins. Presented on a warmed silver platter with a Périgueux sauce built on Madeira and black truffle, marrow-crusted potatoes, and haricots verts. The most classical dish we make.
All steaks are seasoned only with salt before the fire. Consuming raw or undercooked meat may increase your risk of foodborne illness.
A chophouse lives or dies on what surrounds the fire. Our raw bar draws on a rotating list of East Coast oysters and day-boat crudo, our sides are cooked in tallow rendered from our own trim, and our pastry program is small, seasonal, and mostly built around dairy from a farm we visit twice a year.
Cold plates, raw preparations, and a small selection of things meant to open the palate before the fire arrives.
A rotating half-dozen from Wellfleet, Duxbury, Bluepoint, and Beausoleil, shucked to order, served on crushed ice with mignonette and a house cocktail sauce built on smoked tomato and fresh horseradish.
Filet trimmings hand-cut with cornichon, shallot, and Dijon, bound with a single cured yolk, and finished with capers, brandy, and a shard of buttered rye toast pulled from the hearth.
Little Gem hearts dressed in a dressing built with rendered beef fat, brown anchovy, and 36-month Parmigiano, finished with a warm bone-marrow crouton and cracked black pepper.
Yellow onions caramelized for six hours in beef fat, deglazed with dry sherry, finished with a black-pepper Gruyère crouton torched at the pass.
Two tiers of shellfish for the table — Maine lobster, jumbo shrimp, king crab, oysters, littleneck clams, and hamachi crudo, dressed with three house sauces. Serves three to five.
A small selection for the guest who prefers the sea to the field, drawn from day-boat catches and finished with the same attention as the steaks.
A whole day-boat turbot roasted over the hearth on the bone, finished with brown butter, lemon confit, and parsley oil. Carved tableside. Serves two.
A 1½-pound Maine lobster removed from the shell, poached in cultured butter, and reunited on the plate with a warm crab-fat vinaigrette and salt-baked new potatoes.
Four large Georges Bank scallops seared over open flame, finished with a brown-butter jus, roasted marrow, and a shave of fresh black truffle in season.
Sides made in generous portions and meant to be shared. Cooked in tallow rendered from our own trim, or in cultured butter from the same dairy that supplies our pastry room.
Twice-cooked in rendered duck fat, tossed with fine sea salt and a whisper of malt vinegar powder, served with a small pot of house tallow aioli.
Fresh spinach folded into a thick béchamel of cream, aged Gruyère, and a scrape of fresh nutmeg, finished with brown-butter breadcrumbs under the salamander.
Fingerling potatoes crushed and roasted in bone marrow until the outside turns crisp and lacquered, finished with flaky salt and rosemary from our own rooftop.
King trumpet mushrooms scored deeply, blistered over the hearth until the flesh turns near-meaty, dressed in aged sherry and a spoon of tallow-brown-butter.
A whole Vidalia onion baked in embers until it collapses, spooned open, and filled with roasted marrow, brown-butter breadcrumbs, and thyme.
A short pastry list built around dairy from a single farm in the Hudson Valley. The cheese course is served at proper temperature. Dessert wines are poured to match.
Vanilla-bean and coffee ice cream layered on a chocolate génoise, encased in Italian meringue, and set alight tableside with dark rum. Serves two.
A single wedge of our high-heat cheesecake, dark on top, creamy through the middle, served with a small pool of quince paste and a spoon of aged sherry syrup.
A dense torte of single-origin Ecuadorian chocolate, served warm with crème fraîche whipped to soft peaks and a light dusting of cocoa nib.
Three selections from our cellar of American and European cheeses, cut to order and served with quince, honeycomb, and warm walnut bread.
Our cellar sits three stories below the dining room, in the original ice vault of the building. It holds a working list of just over four thousand bottles and roughly nine hundred labels, curated by our head sommelier around a single idea: wines that carry the fire.
We look for reds with the structure and lift to hold up against fat and char — Northern Rhône Syrahs, Piedmontese Nebbiolo, older Bordeaux, cool-climate Napa Cabernet, and a small quiet library of aged Barolo and Brunello. We keep a serious white program too, and a growing selection of Champagne, sherry, and Madeira for the guests who understand what those wines can do next to beef.
"A steakhouse wine list is a promise. If we bring a bottle to your table, we mean it. It's here for a reason." — Priya Aslani, Head Sommelier
A guided tasting through the wines that most define what we do — a Rhône Syrah, a Left Bank Bordeaux, and a Barolo held back for a decade before release. Poured over the course of an evening, ordered to match the arc of a steak dinner.
Priya's choice, changed weekly, drawn from bottles opened at the sommelier's counter that night. Almost always includes at least one rarity you will not see on the printed list, and a piece of the story behind each.
A confidential list of aged bottles kept off-menu, offered only in whole-bottle format, and reserved for guests who ask. Includes verticals of DRC, Pétrus, Sassicaia, and a small but loved collection of pre-1970 Madeira.
Elior started as a runner at Delmonico's on William Street in the summer of 2001, moved to the grill six months later, and never really left the fire. He spent four years at Peter Luger, three at the meat station at Café Boulud, and two more at Etxebarri in the Basque Country, learning the specific patience of cooking a single ingredient over live coals.
He opened Nocturne in 2014 with the sommelier Priya Aslani and a fifteen-cook kitchen brigade, a size the restaurant has kept ever since. He still runs the pass every service, still breaks down the primals on Tuesdays, and still writes the specials out by hand each afternoon on the small chalkboard by the pass.
Nocturne has three private dining rooms, each designed for a specific kind of evening. Every room is served by its own captain and sommelier, has its own printed menu, and can be paired with a bespoke wine list drawn from the cellar. Bookings can be made up to twelve months in advance.
Our chef's counter set inside the wine cellar itself, three floors below the dining room, at a single reclaimed maple table. Guests are cooked for directly by Chef Vance on a small custom hearth and paired course-by-course by the sommelier from surrounding bottles.
A dark walnut-paneled room off the main dining floor, lined with our small collection of first-edition food writing and lit by a pair of restored 1920s brass chandeliers. Suited to intimate dinners, closings, and small celebrations that want a room of their own.
A long banquet room off the back of the main floor built around three reclaimed farm tables, with a walk-in fireplace that Chef Vance uses for whole-animal cookery on request. Our largest private space, and the only one that can be reserved for a full-house buyout.
"Nocturne is not so much a steakhouse as it is an argument for what a steakhouse could be — patient, unhurried, and completely uninterested in spectacle for its own sake. Vance's ribeye is the finest steak in the city, and the room knows it."Pete Wells · Restaurant Review · 2019
"The rare American steakhouse that treats the dining room as seriously as the fire. A cellar of true depth, a service brigade that has been together for a decade, and food that is quietly the best of its kind on the continent."50 Best Restaurants · 2023
"You go for the steak. You stay for the cellar. You come back for the room — the low leather booths, the amber light, the sense that whatever is happening outside can afford to wait."Marissa Chen · Best New Restaurant · 2014
"The kind of steakhouse that used to exist in every American city and now barely exists anywhere. If you have not been, you should go. If you have been, you already know."Ryan Sutton · Feature · 2022
Reservations open sixty days in advance and are released at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. For parties of six or more, or for any of the private rooms, please use the note field below or write to us directly at reservations@nocturne.nyc.
Great Jones is a quiet, one-block street between Lafayette and the Bowery. The dining room entrance is under the copper awning; the bar has its own entrance on Bowery.
Bleecker Street station (6 train) is a two-minute walk. Broadway-Lafayette (B, D, F, M) is three. The Bowery (J, Z) is four.
Complimentary valet parking is offered Thursday through Saturday from 5:00 PM directly out front. Please tell your host on arrival.
There is no formal dress code, but the room is a jacket-and-collared-shirt kind of place. We ask that guests refrain from athletic wear.
For private-room bookings, buyouts, and press inquiries, please write directly to events@nocturne.nyc.