Under new management, McKendrick’s approaches change with ‘baby steps’

For many diners, McKendrick’s Steakhouse is appealing for what it’s not. The Dunwoody steakhouse has been around for more than 30 years, so it isn’t new, nor is it dark, loud, trendy or fussy.

You won’t be confronted with inconveniences like paid parking, uncomfortable seating or reminders of the passage of time. This is a straightforward American steakhouse, dutifully charbroiling prime steaks and stirring up cold martinis.

But there are rumblings of change at McKendrick’s, which brought on Anthony Casiello as an operating partner last year. Casiello hired the new executive chef, Branden Holte, in August, prompting The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to officially revisit the restaurant.

Holte came to the steakhouse from Unsukay Hospitality, the group behind Local Three, MTH Pizza and Roshambo, in a move that likely caused consternation among the McKendrick’s faithful. Would he transform this reliable Perimeter-area standby into something unrecognizable?

Right now, the answer is a pretty firm no. Based on the AJC’s prior reviews of McKendrick’s — first by Elliott Mackle in 1996, then a follow-up by John Kessler in 2002 — and my meals this month, very little has changed about the McKendrick’s experience in three decades.

You’ll still find high-quality steaks and savvy service. And, even if McKendrick’s isn’t cheap, it serves the same beef found at some of Atlanta’s ritziest steakhouses with a lower total tab. The restaurant’s supplier is Meats by Linz, the same as Clark’s Steakhouse or Hal’s.

But change is inevitable. In a surprisingly candid interview with Casiello and Holte, the restaurant’s new leadership openly shared the struggles of modernizing this Dunwoody institution without alienating their regular customers. As a journalist, I could sympathize.

When Casiello first came on board, he found a kitchen that needed restructuring, both literally and figuratively.

“We really almost gutted the kitchen, made it more efficient and brought it up to date,” he said.

The same went for the back-of-house staff; Casiello planned to give Holte the opportunity to hire his own team.

Since Holte took over the line in August, he has been forced to focus on the fundamentals with a mixed group of new and veteran staff. Ideas taken for granted at most restaurants, like seasonality and farm-to-table cooking, never penetrated the kitchen at McKendrick’s; crops with short growing seasons like asparagus, okra and strawberries have always been served year-round.

Similarly, the importance of plate presentation remains unembraced, to a fault. In an era when some restaurants design dishes for the camera as much as the consumer, the way my tomahawk steak was plated betrayed its impressive quality — and tidily encapsulates what it’s like to eat at present-day McKendrick’s.

It was the most expensive steak on the menu: $175 for a 30-ounce rib-eye that was dry-aged for 30 days. The steak itself was excellent, well-prepared with a crusty char and cooked to a tender medium-rare. The rich, funky flavor of dry-aging enhanced the beefiness without overwhelming my senses. But it arrived at the table cut into chunks of varying sizes, clumped together on an expansive plate embellished only with a sprig of parsley and moistened with a spoonful of jus — unfortunately, very different from the professional photos the restaurant provided for this story. Even though the flavor was sturdy and decadent, the presentation immediately begged the question, “I paid $175 for this?”

When confronted with a photo of my steak, Holte did not make excuses.

“It’s something we’re working on,” Holte said of the kitchen team.

Holte said they’re trying to establish a culture of intentionality and thoughtfulness at McKendrick’s; their mantra so far has been, “Baby steps.” They’ve banned the phrase, “That’s how we’ve always done it.”

The new regime is also doing its best not to alienate their core customers. They respect the longtime regulars and loyalists that have kept the doors open for so many years in a Perimeter shopping center where several other prime spaces sit vacant. Casiello and Holte understand that changing too much, too quickly will push those diners away. Even switching the bacon from Hormel to Nueske’s elicited questions from a regular who orders a plate of bacon every time he visits, Casiello said.

There are certain nonnegotiables. Casiello said he refuses to close McKendrick’s for lunch despite a precipitous, industrywide decline in business lunches.

“We have regulars who have come three times a week for 25 years for business lunches,” Casiello said. “I couldn’t do it to them. I couldn’t look them in the eye.”

Casiello is leaning into a strong service tradition at McKendrick’s, and he said he was grateful for the experienced and talented staff already working the wood-paneled dining room.

“I have a staff of grown, adult professionals who have been doing this for a long time,” he said.

The service at McKendrick’s is delivered with a level of confidence and charisma that only comes with years of experience. The only hiccup I experienced involved a few add-ons during a dinner with my wife.

We ordered the jumbo shrimp cocktail, which was priced at $20 on the menu and came to the table with four shrimp. It was a surprise to check the bill at the end of the meal and see that we were charged an extra $6.50 for the fourth shrimp — an addition that should have been noted when we placed our order. The same thing happened when we agreed to add sardines to our Caesar salad, which turned out to be another undisclosed upcharge.

In my conversation with Casiello and Holte, I was struck by the monumental challenges they face as new management at such a venerable steakhouse. Unlike a brand-new restaurant, which comes with plenty of its own challenges, they must contend with an entrenched staff and a customer base with a rigid set of expectations. Their efforts to change McKendrick’s face both internal and external resistance. Holte, who specializes in making charcuterie from scratch and cutting his own steaks, doesn’t yet have the right health department approvals to start either of those programs.

I asked if they thought it was fair for McKendrick’s to be reviewed one month into Holte’s tenure. To their credit, Casiello and Holte did not shy away from the prospect.

“I think it’s early, but I’m glad we came across your radar and that you had the opportunity to come in,” Holte said.

I wrestled with the idea; my duty is to our readers, and any of them can walk into McKendrick’s and spend a serious chunk of change on a dinner I wouldn’t necessarily recommend beyond the steaks and service. But I also don’t think the McKendrick’s of today is the same restaurant it will be in six months, and it feels unjust to rate it in its current state of transition.