Ricardo Steakhouse

Most steakhouses cluster in midtown, catering to businessmen with corporate accounts. This meat lover’s mecca is set in Spanish Harlem, and is designed to appeal to locals. The food is hearty and the setting evokes the casual counter-style design of cuchifrito restaurants. Appetizers stick to the traditional steakhouse agenda: oysters, clams, shrimp and salad. But entrées and sides show Latin flavors, as in a house-special platter (grilled skirt steak and pork chop served with rice and beans and ripe sweet plantains) and rotisserie pork with apple-raisin relish.