“You’re here to spend money and enjoy yourself,” our waitress told us shortly after we sat down. Crass? Perhaps. True? Definitely. Lettuce Entertain You’s glam steak house, like the best of the genre, revels in conspicuous consumption: millionaire potatoes, $195 porterhouses, risotto with an absurd volume of shaved Australian black truffles, chocolate cake with edible flakes of 14-karat gold.

Still, the down-to-earth staff and crisp contemporary decor manage to pamper diners without the stifling steak-house swagger that seems so outdated now. The heroic 24-ounce cowboy steak (a glistening caramelized bone-in rib eye) oozes old-school confidence, and the menu’s six salads and nuanced seafood dishes, such as buttery Atlantic sca lops with spring garlic, fennel, and pine nuts, make their own bold statements. RPM succeeds in showing where steak houses are headed while paying homage to where they've always been.

Order this: Tuxedo cocktail ($13), foie gras ($21), cowboy steak ($72), hen of the woods mushrooms ($11), chocolate soufflé ($12)