Catch Hospitality Group (CHG) and its corporate wine director, Emily Buse, have had a busy September. Earlier this month, the group expanded its New York City footprint with the Eighty Six, an intimate 35-seat steakhouse in New York City’s West Village. Then, on Friday, Sept. 19, a new location of its flagship Catch will open in Scottsdale, Ariz., joining six other locations in the franchise (five of which are Wine Spectator Restaurant Award winners).
CHG is co-owned by founders Mark Birnbaum and Eugene Remm, as well as Tilman Fertitta, whose Landry’s Inc. is one of the most prominent hospitality groups in the United States and includes two Grand Award winners, Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House in New York City and Mastro’s Steakhouse at the Post Oak Hotel.
An Elevated Steakhouse in a Historic Location
The Eighty Six occupies an important location in its trendy West Village neighborhood: 86 Bedford Street was once home to one of the city’s most popular speakeasies, Chumley’s. The bar had a long and storied history, with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway as regular visitors, but its final incarnation closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year, the space was briefly home to the controversy-ridden Frog Club.
Now, the Eighty Six aims to recapture some of that Prohibition-era mystique. Its interior was designed by the Rockwell Group, whose portfolio includes Restaurant Award winners La Tête d’Or, COQODAQ and CHG’s lower-Manhattan dynamo The Corner Store (a favorite for spotting celebrities, including the likes of Taylor Swift). The Art Deco—inspired space harkens back to the Jazz Age with velvet banquettes, geometric-patterned marble floors, polished wood surfaces and antique mirrors.
Crafted by CHG culinary director Michael Vignola, the menu offers steak house mainstays like raw seafood options, salads and veggie-centric sides to accompany steaks sourced from around the world and aged in-house. Several steak cuts are available, from an 8-ounce skirt to a 32-ounce porter house for two, while seafood mains include Ora king salmon, Dover sole (“barely touched” in the cooking process, according to the menu) and whole roasted lobster. A good example of where Vignola takes the steak house theme is the creamed spinach, which incorporates truffle, leek and 24-month-aged Fiore Sardo cheese.
Buse, who will work on the floor most nights as the sommelier, assembled the 260-selection wine list, principally comprised of French, Italian and Californian producers. Notable standouts from the list include a vertical of Château Pichon Longueville Lalande reaching back to the legendary 1982 vintage, a Burgundy section ripe with grand cru options from producers like Mongeard-Mugneret and Armand Rousseau and large-format Champagnes from Bollinger and Dom Pérignon.
Catch Scottsdale: New Locale, Same Winning Recipe
At Catch Scottsdale, look for the same approach that has made the franchise a destination for buzzy, vibrant dining experiences. The expansive 11,700-square-foot restaurant will seat 290 diners and contain two bars, a private event space and a prominently placed glass wine case that holds much of the inventory of the restaurant’s roughly 600 selections. The Rockwell Group designed this space as well; its color palette reflects the desert location, with warm auburn and terracotta earth tones complemented by gold accents and polished marble surfaces.
CHG’s vice president of culinary, John Beatty, oversees the restaurant’s trademark Asian-inspired steak house fare. Inventive sushi options, cuts of domestic beef and a Wagyu “hot rock” (thinly sliced Wagyu, cooked tableside on a piping-hot black stone) are the centerpieces of the menu. Some seafood is flown directly from Tokyo’s famed Toyosu Market, including for the madai crudo (Japanese sea bream served with pickled peach, pomegranate and amarillo sauce) and truffle sashimi (tuna and hamachi with chili ponzu, black truffle purée and kaluga caviar).
Head sommelier Troy Tranzow will oversee the day-to-day operations of the 600-bottle wine program, which covers most major wine regions in the world. The by-the-glass list of 20 selections is impressive for its breadth,; the sparkling pours span easy-drinking Proseccos to Krug Champagne; Sauvignon Blanc is available from both Chile and Sancerre; and reds include Rioja’s La Rioja Alta and Piedmont’s Gaja. The bottle list is equally impressive, with verticals from the likes of Napa’s Bond, Bordeaux’s Château Cos d’Estournel, Australia’s Penfolds and more.
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