The Other Critics

Kauffman’s Final Review Goes Live, and It’s of the Penthouse Club

It's strip club with pretty decent food!
It’s strip club with pretty decent food! Photo: Brian Smeets/Grub Street

Jonathan Kauffman, in his last review for SF Weekly before heading over to Tasting Table, certainly shows a sense of humor with his choice of restaurant. The outgoing critic took this final opportunity to describe the oddest, but perhaps most press-worthy opening of the past few months, the Penthouse Club & Steakhouse, where chef Michael Ellis (formerly of Dry Creek Kitchen) has already announced his intention to become the first strip club chef to earn a Michelin star. Kuaffman finds the food and service to include “all the elements of four-star dining — not yet buffed to a polish,” and albeit with oontz-oontz music and topless women sliding down the two-story stripper pole in the center of the club.

The steaks are competently cooked and tasty (they’d better be at $50 to $60), he says, but the the duo of Rosen Colorado lamb is even better. And he also seems to like the smaller plates which you can also order downstairs, in closer proximity to bare breasts, including chicken pops that he says are ” halfway between a bar snack and something better.” And in the end, it was the dancer in eight-inch heels and a thong climbing slowly down that pole that was “the most impressive display, culinary or athletic, I’d witnessed all evening.” Anyhow, cheers, Jon. See you on the flipside.

Penthouse Steakhouse: Near Fine Dining Among Dancers [SF Weekly]
Earlier: Exclusive: This Is Jonathan Kauffman

Kauffman’s Final Review Goes Live, and It’s of the Penthouse Club