I’m not interested in writing another starry-eyed tribute to Durant’s.
Don’t misunderstand, I still feel that way every time I walk through the leaded glass kitchen door. The sultry wash of dim red light, the career servers in crisp tuxedo jackets, the stiff martinis and plump chilled shrimp. I’m as awestruck by Phoenix’s beloved little time capsule as anybody.
But you’ve read that story before. Dreamy ruminations on the steakhouse that time forgot are an exercise in jumbling words to retell a story that’s stale as week-old bread. Red leather booths may grow comfortable with age, but rose-tinted puff pieces tend to chafe after a while.
What interests me, rather, is what we’re not saying about Durant’s. Not out loud, anyway.
So, in the cantankerous spirit of Jack Durant himself, let’s speak our friggin’ minds. Bring on the tough love. It might be poor form to take shots at a 73-year-old lady, but when she looks like she could live to 146, you can only tiptoe for so long.
You can’t eat memories
This is probably a bad idea. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that Durant's is unassailable, and turning a knife on this sacred cow might as well be turning it on myself. But I suspect I’m not alone in my ambivalence, and I think there are two schools of thought that can best be summarized thusly:
Are you a Stan or a Dan?
Stan is Stan Barnes, a former Arizona legislator who now operates a political consulting group.
“I’m just another story in the relationship between Durant’s and politics in Arizona,” he says. “Lobbyists took me to Durant’s for the first time. We walked in through the kitchen, which blew my mind. People around me were drinking martinis at lunchtime. I thought I had stepped into the power center of the state of Arizona.”
By all accounts, he had. Like so many movers and shakers on the political scene, Barnes has spent more martini lunches at Durant’s than he can count. And while it’s gin-fueled backslapping in a historical watering hole that makes the place magical, Barnes loves to eat there as well.
“The food is still as excellent as it has been over the decades,” Barnes says.
Really?
“Yes,” he states, with conviction. “I’m a fan. I was baptized into it over three decades ago, and fell in love, and remain in love. For the most part, I think it feels very much the same restaurant I set foot into in 1989.”
Dan, on the other hand, seems less sure.
Dan is Dan Maynard, an attorney who moved here from Chicago in the early ’80s and spent the bulk of the next two decades at Durant’s for many of the same reasons.
"It was the place to go, and when you went there you were going to run into a who's who of Phoenix at the time," Maynard says. "Durant's was far and away the nicest steakhouse. The food was really good, the service was excellent. Between spring of ’82 and September of ’83, I probably ate at Durant's a hundred times," Maynard says.
But over the years, Maynard found himself visiting less and less. And when I spoke with him, he said he couldn't remember the last time he went.
"Honestly, it was the price and the quality of the food. I don't think the food is nearly as good as it used to be," Maynard says. "It's absolutely a nostalgia thing for me now. I go back occasionally, and you try to get what you had before, and it's just not quite as good. Or your memory isn't as good. I don't know which one it is."
Longtime fans might disagree about the food, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who isn’t smitten with Durant’s throwback charms. Rather, the edge of the plate is where the arguments begin. For me, what makes dinner at Durant’s so maddening is that it all begins so perfectly.
Usually, at least.
The unsung heroes of Durant’s
One recent evening, 15 minutes after my group took a seat, staff continued to stream past us, none sparing a glance. A tablemate asked if we should flag somebody down. “No,” I replied, “I want to see how long this takes.” Somewhere around the 32-minute mark, a mortified server bathed in flop sweat rushed up and apologized profusely, launching a playful game of cat and mouse as he fought all night, against my protests, to amend for the gaffe by sneaking us complimentary desserts.
It was an unnecessary but appreciated gesture. The gap in coverage was an uncharacteristic miscue, and even when they faceplant — which almost never happens — the folks at Durant’s recover with grace.
Intoxicating as the room may be, I’m convinced that the bedrock of the restaurant’s success is its ragtag collection of career servers who refuse to succumb to the scripted, plasticine standard of service in Phoenix. A bit of gentle warmth, a wry smile and a knack for knowing when to show up and when to go away is infinitely more hospitable than a peppy greeting and a 20-minute lecture about the menu. I wish more restaurants understood this.
Teetotaling is a sin at Durant’s, and the more classic the tipple, the better. The martinis sparkle, but that’s to be expected. Martinis are like tofu. They taste like their surroundings. Beyond that, I’ve yet to have a bad drink at Durant’s, but as a matter of principle, I’ve yet to ask for one that was invented after 1979.
Two cocktails deep, I start to wonder if the difference between the Stans and the Dans is how many drinks they put down before their dinner arrives.
Bungling the basics
Durant’s nails the chilled shrimp, perfectly poached and perched on a chalice brimming with ketchupy cocktail sauce that’s inartful but effective. Shrimp scampi fall a little flat, though, drowned with a creamy-textured butter sauce that’s wanting for garlic and salt. The scampi aren't bad, exactly, but while the staff members deserve every penny they get, $10 a shrimp is on par with the ritziest, most decadent steakhouses in town. At that price, they need to be a lot better.
Sauteed chicken livers are something a throwback steakhouse should ace. The plateful of dredged and browned nuggets certainly look the part, but even my liver-loving friends turn their noses up on the first pass. It’s no wonder. They’re overcooked and grainy without a hint of sizzle or seasoning. I grab a lemon off a plate of oysters, wring out every last drop over the livers, add a hefty amount of table salt, and send the plate around again. A million times better, we all agree, but still not enough to revive a dish that’s dead on arrival.
The lemon doesn’t help the oysters Rockefeller much, either. I’m unsure how the original recipe’s blend of bright, aromatic herbs was supplanted by piles of gloppy creamed spinach and chewy chunks of bacon, but no amount of acid is going to pull them back from the precipice. I’ve sampled some leaden renditions over the years, but few have landed harder in the pit of my stomach than these.
Still, Durant’s is a steakhouse, and hope springs eternal. One can forgive a lot if the steaks are excellent.
Steak of the sacred cow
The filet is unremarkable, but in fairness to the kitchen, being unremarkable is kind of filet’s thing. A ribeye, on the other hand, needs to be juicy and full of life. On one night it’s fine, if a little dull and underseasoned. On another night, it’s oddly tough and dry.
Durant’s serves prime steaks, though the uncooked specimens I spy while walking through the kitchen appear to have barely made the cut. For an establishment where the proprietor once purportedly left half a ton of beef to rot in the parking lot because it didn’t meet his standards, this comes as a disappointment.
What’s more, the hardwood broiler that Durant’s legend Ernie Cañez tended for five decades is long gone. A gas-fueled grill is now in its place. I hear tell of a time when Durant’s dry-aged steaks on the premises, though it’s unclear whether that’s truth or rumor. They certainly don’t serve them now.
I wasn’t around in the 1950s, but they seasoned their food back then, didn’t they?
The signature porterhouse is a 48-ounce monster, and it isn’t a bad piece of meat. But it’s completely devoid of salt, and a shaker of Morton’s iodized just isn’t a substitute. Moreover, Durant’s charges top dollar for its steaks. At $79.50, a 14-ounce New York is one of the priciest strips in town. The argument is that Durant’s steaks come with a salad and side, but how much value does a handful of spinach with raspberry vinaigrette and a cup of stiff mashed potatoes really add?
Aha! I found the salt. All of it. It’s in the prime rib, both the meat itself and its bouillon-heavy jus. If you order it, be sure to hydrate.
Consistency, as always, is key. On a good night, the steaks can (barely) hold the line, but step off the beaten path and things go downhill very, very quickly.
The wheels come off
Salmon is carefully prepared, even if it’s cooked to a temperature that’s more 1985 than 2023. But the glaze is a belligerent, cloying mess that tastes like a bottle of Mae Ploy Sweet Chili Sauce mixed with mango jelly. Meanwhile, an investment of $84 nets you a pair of bready hockey puck-like crab cakes made with pasteurized backfin, heavy on the filler and bell pepper. If anybody upends a table at Durant’s, they’re probably from Maryland.
But the chicken piccata is where the kitchen’s shortcomings are laid brutally bare.
I know we like to use the word “tasteless” in a colloquial, pejorative sense. But in this instance, I mean it in the most literal way possible. This spongy, saucy chicken breast has no flavor. There is nothing there. Even the capers taste like nothing. How does one strip the flavor from a caper? One of my tablemates takes a bite, pauses, glances up nervously and says, “Do I have COVID?”
I manage to land a couple of tasty dishes. The fried shrimp are plump and juicy, encased in a delicately crisp panko coating. And whoever seasoned the steaks could learn from whoever seasoned the lamb. It arrives admirably cooked and imbued with a gentle herbal scent. But even this win is the setup for a punchline. Next to that lovely serving of lamb sits a glistening, emerald deposit of jiggling mint jelly. There’s retro and there’s performance art. Best pretend it isn’t there.
Desserts are a strong point, which is to say they’re solid, and the key lime pie is a particularly lively standout. But this is the point of the meal where no amount of sweetness can raise my spirits.
The Durant’s dilemma
One needn’t grow up with Durant’s to grasp how special it is. That much is self-evident the moment you walk through the door. But Durant’s is no longer selling food. It’s selling nostalgia. And $150 a head is awfully steep for nostalgia, even if it comes with salad and a baked potato.
I look around and I see a moment frozen in time, a living historical document, something precious that demands to be treasured and protected. Then I look down at my dinner and I see a mediocre, aging steakhouse charging top dollar for dull, poorly prepared food. It’s hard for me to reconcile those two without feeling cheated, not because I’ve overpaid, but because the euphoria I felt when I walked through the door has dropped dead on the plate.
This isn’t a call to modernize. Heck, don’t even reprint the menu. Make a few tweaks, improve the sourcing and sharpen the execution, and the very same dishes could live up to the promise of the beautiful, timeless space. Durant’s could be such a stunning classic restaurant, and I can only guess who’s holding it back. Is it the owners? Kitchen leadership? Regulars who mutiny at the faintest whiff of change?
Whatever the reason, I hope the kitchen finds its stride, because here’s another story you’ve heard before:
Everyone sees a crowded dining room and assumes it will stay that way forever. But how many unassailable Arizona institutions have suddenly vanished over the last decade? The Stans grow old and the Dans move on, and one day we’re all shocked to learn that a beloved piece of history has closed its doors for good.
That’s a story I hope I never have to write.
2611 N. Central Ave.
602-264-5967
durantsaz.com
4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday
Appetizers $19-$39; Entrees $46-$157; Sides $15-$20; Desserts $14.
Don’t misunderstand, I still feel that way every time I walk through the leaded glass kitchen door. The sultry wash of dim red light, the career servers in crisp tuxedo jackets, the stiff martinis and plump chilled shrimp. I’m as awestruck by Phoenix’s beloved little time capsule as anybody.
But you’ve read that story before. Dreamy ruminations on the steakhouse that time forgot are an exercise in jumbling words to retell a story that’s stale as week-old bread. Red leather booths may grow comfortable with age, but rose-tinted puff pieces tend to chafe after a while.
What interests me, rather, is what we’re not saying about Durant’s. Not out loud, anyway.
So, in the cantankerous spirit of Jack Durant himself, let’s speak our friggin’ minds. Bring on the tough love. It might be poor form to take shots at a 73-year-old lady, but when she looks like she could live to 146, you can only tiptoe for so long.
The red-hued dining room has remained largely unchanged for Durant's 73-year lifespan.
Dominic Armato
You can’t eat memories
This is probably a bad idea. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that Durant's is unassailable, and turning a knife on this sacred cow might as well be turning it on myself. But I suspect I’m not alone in my ambivalence, and I think there are two schools of thought that can best be summarized thusly:Are you a Stan or a Dan?
Stan is Stan Barnes, a former Arizona legislator who now operates a political consulting group.
“I’m just another story in the relationship between Durant’s and politics in Arizona,” he says. “Lobbyists took me to Durant’s for the first time. We walked in through the kitchen, which blew my mind. People around me were drinking martinis at lunchtime. I thought I had stepped into the power center of the state of Arizona.”
By all accounts, he had. Like so many movers and shakers on the political scene, Barnes has spent more martini lunches at Durant’s than he can count. And while it’s gin-fueled backslapping in a historical watering hole that makes the place magical, Barnes loves to eat there as well.
“The food is still as excellent as it has been over the decades,” Barnes says.
Really?
“Yes,” he states, with conviction. “I’m a fan. I was baptized into it over three decades ago, and fell in love, and remain in love. For the most part, I think it feels very much the same restaurant I set foot into in 1989.”
Dan, on the other hand, seems less sure.
Dan is Dan Maynard, an attorney who moved here from Chicago in the early ’80s and spent the bulk of the next two decades at Durant’s for many of the same reasons.
"It was the place to go, and when you went there you were going to run into a who's who of Phoenix at the time," Maynard says. "Durant's was far and away the nicest steakhouse. The food was really good, the service was excellent. Between spring of ’82 and September of ’83, I probably ate at Durant's a hundred times," Maynard says.
But over the years, Maynard found himself visiting less and less. And when I spoke with him, he said he couldn't remember the last time he went.
"Honestly, it was the price and the quality of the food. I don't think the food is nearly as good as it used to be," Maynard says. "It's absolutely a nostalgia thing for me now. I go back occasionally, and you try to get what you had before, and it's just not quite as good. Or your memory isn't as good. I don't know which one it is."
Longtime fans might disagree about the food, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who isn’t smitten with Durant’s throwback charms. Rather, the edge of the plate is where the arguments begin. For me, what makes dinner at Durant’s so maddening is that it all begins so perfectly.
Usually, at least.
The unsung heroes of Durant’s
One recent evening, 15 minutes after my group took a seat, staff continued to stream past us, none sparing a glance. A tablemate asked if we should flag somebody down. “No,” I replied, “I want to see how long this takes.” Somewhere around the 32-minute mark, a mortified server bathed in flop sweat rushed up and apologized profusely, launching a playful game of cat and mouse as he fought all night, against my protests, to amend for the gaffe by sneaking us complimentary desserts. It was an unnecessary but appreciated gesture. The gap in coverage was an uncharacteristic miscue, and even when they faceplant — which almost never happens — the folks at Durant’s recover with grace.
Intoxicating as the room may be, I’m convinced that the bedrock of the restaurant’s success is its ragtag collection of career servers who refuse to succumb to the scripted, plasticine standard of service in Phoenix. A bit of gentle warmth, a wry smile and a knack for knowing when to show up and when to go away is infinitely more hospitable than a peppy greeting and a 20-minute lecture about the menu. I wish more restaurants understood this.
Teetotaling is a sin at Durant’s, and the more classic the tipple, the better. The martinis sparkle, but that’s to be expected. Martinis are like tofu. They taste like their surroundings. Beyond that, I’ve yet to have a bad drink at Durant’s, but as a matter of principle, I’ve yet to ask for one that was invented after 1979.
Two cocktails deep, I start to wonder if the difference between the Stans and the Dans is how many drinks they put down before their dinner arrives.
Bungling the basics
Durant’s nails the chilled shrimp, perfectly poached and perched on a chalice brimming with ketchupy cocktail sauce that’s inartful but effective. Shrimp scampi fall a little flat, though, drowned with a creamy-textured butter sauce that’s wanting for garlic and salt. The scampi aren't bad, exactly, but while the staff members deserve every penny they get, $10 a shrimp is on par with the ritziest, most decadent steakhouses in town. At that price, they need to be a lot better.Sauteed chicken livers are something a throwback steakhouse should ace. The plateful of dredged and browned nuggets certainly look the part, but even my liver-loving friends turn their noses up on the first pass. It’s no wonder. They’re overcooked and grainy without a hint of sizzle or seasoning. I grab a lemon off a plate of oysters, wring out every last drop over the livers, add a hefty amount of table salt, and send the plate around again. A million times better, we all agree, but still not enough to revive a dish that’s dead on arrival.
The lemon doesn’t help the oysters Rockefeller much, either. I’m unsure how the original recipe’s blend of bright, aromatic herbs was supplanted by piles of gloppy creamed spinach and chewy chunks of bacon, but no amount of acid is going to pull them back from the precipice. I’ve sampled some leaden renditions over the years, but few have landed harder in the pit of my stomach than these.
Still, Durant’s is a steakhouse, and hope springs eternal. One can forgive a lot if the steaks are excellent.
Durant's 40-ounce porterhouse. Not a bad steak, but lagging behind its contemporaries and begging for salt.
Dominic Armato
Steak of the sacred cow
The filet is unremarkable, but in fairness to the kitchen, being unremarkable is kind of filet’s thing. A ribeye, on the other hand, needs to be juicy and full of life. On one night it’s fine, if a little dull and underseasoned. On another night, it’s oddly tough and dry.Durant’s serves prime steaks, though the uncooked specimens I spy while walking through the kitchen appear to have barely made the cut. For an establishment where the proprietor once purportedly left half a ton of beef to rot in the parking lot because it didn’t meet his standards, this comes as a disappointment.
What’s more, the hardwood broiler that Durant’s legend Ernie Cañez tended for five decades is long gone. A gas-fueled grill is now in its place. I hear tell of a time when Durant’s dry-aged steaks on the premises, though it’s unclear whether that’s truth or rumor. They certainly don’t serve them now.
I wasn’t around in the 1950s, but they seasoned their food back then, didn’t they?
The signature porterhouse is a 48-ounce monster, and it isn’t a bad piece of meat. But it’s completely devoid of salt, and a shaker of Morton’s iodized just isn’t a substitute. Moreover, Durant’s charges top dollar for its steaks. At $79.50, a 14-ounce New York is one of the priciest strips in town. The argument is that Durant’s steaks come with a salad and side, but how much value does a handful of spinach with raspberry vinaigrette and a cup of stiff mashed potatoes really add?
Aha! I found the salt. All of it. It’s in the prime rib, both the meat itself and its bouillon-heavy jus. If you order it, be sure to hydrate.
Consistency, as always, is key. On a good night, the steaks can (barely) hold the line, but step off the beaten path and things go downhill very, very quickly.
The wheels come off
Salmon is carefully prepared, even if it’s cooked to a temperature that’s more 1985 than 2023. But the glaze is a belligerent, cloying mess that tastes like a bottle of Mae Ploy Sweet Chili Sauce mixed with mango jelly. Meanwhile, an investment of $84 nets you a pair of bready hockey puck-like crab cakes made with pasteurized backfin, heavy on the filler and bell pepper. If anybody upends a table at Durant’s, they’re probably from Maryland.But the chicken piccata is where the kitchen’s shortcomings are laid brutally bare.
I know we like to use the word “tasteless” in a colloquial, pejorative sense. But in this instance, I mean it in the most literal way possible. This spongy, saucy chicken breast has no flavor. There is nothing there. Even the capers taste like nothing. How does one strip the flavor from a caper? One of my tablemates takes a bite, pauses, glances up nervously and says, “Do I have COVID?”
I manage to land a couple of tasty dishes. The fried shrimp are plump and juicy, encased in a delicately crisp panko coating. And whoever seasoned the steaks could learn from whoever seasoned the lamb. It arrives admirably cooked and imbued with a gentle herbal scent. But even this win is the setup for a punchline. Next to that lovely serving of lamb sits a glistening, emerald deposit of jiggling mint jelly. There’s retro and there’s performance art. Best pretend it isn’t there.
Desserts are a strong point, which is to say they’re solid, and the key lime pie is a particularly lively standout. But this is the point of the meal where no amount of sweetness can raise my spirits.
The heart of Durant's is a throwback bar where the martinis sparkle and countless political deals have gone down.
Dominic Armato
The Durant’s dilemma
One needn’t grow up with Durant’s to grasp how special it is. That much is self-evident the moment you walk through the door. But Durant’s is no longer selling food. It’s selling nostalgia. And $150 a head is awfully steep for nostalgia, even if it comes with salad and a baked potato.I look around and I see a moment frozen in time, a living historical document, something precious that demands to be treasured and protected. Then I look down at my dinner and I see a mediocre, aging steakhouse charging top dollar for dull, poorly prepared food. It’s hard for me to reconcile those two without feeling cheated, not because I’ve overpaid, but because the euphoria I felt when I walked through the door has dropped dead on the plate.
This isn’t a call to modernize. Heck, don’t even reprint the menu. Make a few tweaks, improve the sourcing and sharpen the execution, and the very same dishes could live up to the promise of the beautiful, timeless space. Durant’s could be such a stunning classic restaurant, and I can only guess who’s holding it back. Is it the owners? Kitchen leadership? Regulars who mutiny at the faintest whiff of change?
Whatever the reason, I hope the kitchen finds its stride, because here’s another story you’ve heard before:
Everyone sees a crowded dining room and assumes it will stay that way forever. But how many unassailable Arizona institutions have suddenly vanished over the last decade? The Stans grow old and the Dans move on, and one day we’re all shocked to learn that a beloved piece of history has closed its doors for good.
That’s a story I hope I never have to write.
Durant’s
2611 N. Central Ave.602-264-5967
durantsaz.com
4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday
Appetizers $19-$39; Entrees $46-$157; Sides $15-$20; Desserts $14.
