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Sean Christie’s Carversteak Brings Las Vegas Sizzle to New York’s Theater District

With caviar popsicles, freezer martinis and zero sparklers, Carversteak lands in the Theater District ready to turn dinner into the main event.

Carversteak, one of the best and liveliest meateries on the Las Vegas Strip, will make its New York debut when it opens on West 48th Street on Friday, March 20. 

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Like the Las Vegas original, the New York location will feature branded dry-aged tomahawks, wagyu cheesesteak bites, ice-cold martinis and custom “choose your weapon” boxes with an assortment of steak knives. But there will be plenty of new offerings as Carver Road Hospitality CEO Sean Christie considers how to balance Las Vegas razzle-dazzle with New York refinement and bring his own sense of theater to the Theater District. 

Instead of the caviar poppers that Carversteak has in Las Vegas, executive chef Daniel Ontiveros will serve caviar-and-potato popsicles that are a playful nod to McDonald’s hash browns with a different shape. Other new dishes at New York’s Carversteak include short rib croquettes, uni toast, French onion short rib and lobster rigatoni alla vodka. Famed mixologist Francesco Lafranconi, who has showcased a martini cart and a spritz bar at Carversteak in Las Vegas, will have a freezer martini bar and an Old Fashioned cart in New York.

For Christie, who was a longtime Las Vegas hospitality executive with a focus on nightlife and entertainment before he started Carver Road, the goal is to turn dinner into a spectacle that can and should be the main event of any given night.

“Toward the end of my tenure at Wynn and in the beginning of my tenure at MGM, nightlife was evolving,” Christie tells Observer. “And for myself, I like to socialize, to be out, but I like to do that in a much different way now. At Carver Road, our motto is, ‘We sell fun.’ I believe that restaurants have taken on a more significant stake in our overall social life. It used to be something you go to for a meal and then go on to the next thing.”

Christie used to run Las Vegas party venues like Encore Beach Club. But nowadays, he wants to talk about moments like the first time he went to Torrisi and sat at the bar, or the energy he soaked up when he visited The Corner Store. Not incidentally, David Rockwell’s Rockwell Group, whose recent hits include The Corner Store, Coqodaq and New York’s Din Tai Fung, designed New York’s 124-seat Carversteak at Jason Pomeranc’s Civilian hotel.  

The hotel is also home to Carver Road’s Rosevale Cocktail Room and Starchild Rooftop. Carversteak has taken over the space that was formerly home to Rosevale Kitchen. 

This Carversteak is a much cozier location than Carversteak at Resorts World Las Vegas, which can seat three times as many guests. But Christie says it’s important to create distinct spaces and encourage guests to come back for different kinds of Carversteak experiences in New York.

There’s a front bar and dining room, an atrium and a private dining room that integrates with the freezer martini bar. Guests enter the restaurant via a gold velvet curtain. But in many ways, Christie is going for subtlety in New York.

“Vegas has, to me, always been something like, you go there, and you take something and supersize it,” Christie says. “You go for the razzle-dazzle. That’s Las Vegas. I think for New York, we’re doing it in a more subtle tone by choosing incredible plateware and cutlery.”

The Carversteak team has been spending a lot of time poring over details like the colors of plates and how that integrates with what Ontiveros is cooking. Ontiveros, who previously worked at Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas, is sourcing steaks from prime purveyors like Snake River Farms and Flannery Beef. Beyond the Old Fashioned cart, there will be tableside fun with a flambé cart for baked Alaska (known as Baked NYC at this Carversteak) and a wine cart curated by master sommeliers Steven and Lindsey Geddes. 

Christie plans to add brunch service in New York soon, and he’s envisioning different treatments for a dessert cart and a Bloody Mary cart that can flip into a Champagne cart. But to be clear, there are no sparklers whatsoever at Carversteak, which once had a cookie dessert with sparklers in Las Vegas and is now sparkler-free.

“I always tie it to things like music,” Christie says. “Music is defined by decades, usually. I really feel like hospitality is moving so quickly, and sparklers feel very 2010 to 2020 now. I feel like people are coming up with new ways to create that same emotion.”

For Christie, it’s about knowing what you should discard and what you want to hold onto for all time.

“If 30 years from now, everyone’s saying they’re sick of ‘choose your weapon,’ we’re still going to do it,” Christie says of Carversteak’s dramatic steak knife presentation. “Because that’s who we are.”

Carversteak, located at 305 W. 48th St., New York, NY 10036, will be open Sunday-Wednesday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Thursday-Saturday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

SEE ALSO: Remembering the Founder of The New York Observer

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