BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- The Boston Brahmins who built the marble-columned commodities trading floor at the Salada Tea Company in the Back Bay wouldn't recognize the place today, but they would probably feel right at home anyway.

Lads in green eyeshades recording the comings and goings of clippers and boxcars loaded with pekoe and darjeeling are replaced by the expansive and elegant dining room of Grille 23, consistently ranked one of the city's top eating spots.

Prime, dry-aged beef is the house specialty, and since 1983, Grille 23 has served enough red meat and poured enough red wine to satisfy the hungriest robber baron (or rather, a "merchant prince," as the type was more decorously known in the lexicon of proper Bostonians). Mahogany walls, plush tapestries, and brass light fixtures -- not to mention white linen tablecloths -- would only add to such a gentleman's conspicuous pleasure.

But it is the kitchen's remarkable consistency over time -- fourteen years is about as long as a century in the food business -- that has earned Grille 23 its faithful following among critics.

The Boston Globe has called the restaurant, a "Boston Classic," and earlier this year, Boston Magazine named it "Boston's Best Steak House." Grille 23 also earned several "top" titles from the latest Zagat Survey (Top Steakhouse; Top Bar & Grille; Top American Seafood Restaurant; and Top People-Watching Restaurant).

If reviewers have written their share of prose poems about the steaks, that's not all they've noticed: Chocolatier Magazine named Pastry Chef Judy Mattera (a former emergency room nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital) among the "Top Ten Pastry Chefs in America," singling out for special praise her chilled chocolate-orange timbales.

You get the idea. Grille 23 is not a restaurant with a fussy attitude. From one fin-de-siecle to another, some things never change: big steaks, big cabernets, and big cigars are still a favorite with business people. Garlic mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and Caesar salad, are very big too.

Nevertheless, Chef Bill Unterstein has noticed what century we live in. After all, he's only 26 years old; and with a wisp of red facial hair on his sharp chin, he looks even younger. A recent menu's run-down of "Signature Specials" listed pan-fried red snapper; sautéed yellowfin tuna; and cedar-planked salmon, among the seafood entrees.

If you're not going to light up after gorging yourself, don't let the sight of your neighbor's cigar send you out into the cold. Grille 23 has a Herculean exhaust system that keeps the 5,000-square-foot restaurant virtually smoke-free. Non-smoking Brahmins, among others, can sip their cognac undisturbed.

Getting There

Grille 23 & Bar
161 Berkeley Street
Boston
tel. (617) 542-2255

Open Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10:30 p.m. (bar opens at 4:30 p.m.); Friday and Saturday, 5:30-11 p.m.; and Sunday, 5:30-10 p.m. (Saturday and Sunday, bar opens at 5:30 p.m.). Dinner entrees $18.75 to $29.75. All major credit cards accepted; jacket and tie suggested; reservations strongly recommended.