VOTE: As Peter Luger Slides, Who Takes NYC’s Meat Crown?

NEW YORK — Peter Luger has worn New York City's steakhouse crown for decades, but it may be time for a new king.

After a searing zero-star review in The New York Times detailed the 132-year-old Williamsburg institution's decline into mediocrity, New Yorkers were left to wonder: If not Luger, who serves the Big Apple's best steak?

Many foodies have sought to answer that question — and there's not an easy answer.

Pete Wells, the Times critic who wrote the Luger takedown, couldn't say whose steak now reigns supreme in his mind. "There are probably too many good steaks around New York for anyone to count, much less for one person to try them all," he told Patch in an email.

But Wells said traditional steakhouses have not served the city's best steaks for at least a decade. That's partly because they no longer have "a lock" on the best meats, he said, as beef sellers such as Pat LaFrieda have built up their businesses by forming relationships with chefs.

And chefs with access to those top-notch meats have approached them like anything else, Wells said: "They studied, researched, talked to each other, experimented."

"Steakhouses tend to do things the same way they've always done, and that tends to be the simplest way possible (salt the meat, run it under the broiler, serve)," Wells said.

Peter Luger always has had competitors. Among them is Keens, which opened in Herald Square in 1885, two years before Luger, and became famous for its mutton chops and large collection of smoking pipes. The Michelin Guide has compared it to "a Dickensian Gentleman's club."

Then there is St. Anselm, another vaunted Williamsburg eatery that's served up acclaimed slabs of meat since 2010. The Times once called it "Keens for the millennial set."

The list goes on and on. When Wall Street Journal reporter Katie Honan asked her Twitter followers to name the city's best steak, legendary steakhouses such as Strip House, the Old Homestead and Delmonico's were mentioned alongside lesser-known favorites like Red Hook's The Good Fork and the East Village's Buenos Aires.

The Times even offered 13 suggestions Tuesday as the paper's Peter Luger review went viral. They ranged from the high-end Minetta Tavern to Robert's Steakhouse, a restaurant tucked inside a Manhattan strip club.

But Peter Luger always will have fans, as Wells noted in his review. Among them is Eater New York restaurant critic Robert Sietsema, who argued the natural variability of the meat supply might have contributed to Wells' poor meal.

A trip to Luger is "about 20 percent atmosphere and mood," Sietsema wrote Tuesday — but the steak is still frequently "phenomenal."

"I often go to Luger at lunch for the hamburger but am seduced by the steak," Sietsema wrote. "I think to myself, ‘I might die tomorrow, so shouldn’t I have the steak one last time?’"

Who do you think serves New York City's best steak? Tell us below.