House of Prime Rib

House of Prime Rib is a steakhouse on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, between Washington and Jackson streets. It has served roast prime rib since 1949, and it calls itself a San Francisco landmark.

The restaurant does one thing above all. Its chef chooses the beef ribs and has them branded for the restaurant's own cold rooms, judging them by firmness, colour and marbling. The corn-fed beef is aged for 21 days and then roasted the old English way, under a thick blanket of coarse rock salt. Owner Joe Betz has kept that routine in place while the city's restaurant scene has changed around it, and the San Francisco Chronicle has counted it among the city's best restaurants.

The meat travels through the rooms on domed stainless-steel carts and is carved at the table to each diner's liking. There are four cuts, from the City Cut and the English Cut to the House of Prime Rib Cut and the large King Henry VIII Cut. Dinner comes with a salad bowl, mashed or baked potato, Yorkshire pudding, creamed spinach and horseradish sauce, so the menu changes little from one visit to the next.

The dining rooms look like an English gentlemen's club, with fireplaces in a warren of rooms that the owner refurbishes regularly. A cocktail lounge at the front serves classic martinis and Manhattans before dinner, and the wine list is arranged by grape, with big names from Napa Valley. The carts, the salt crust and the carving at the table are the same show night after night, and that sameness is what regulars come back for.