Strip House

Photograph: Meghan Petersen

The place: Strip House (13 E 12th St between Fifth Ave and University Pl, 212-328-0000)
The diner: Flushing native Richard Brown—a film professor at NYU and creator of “Movies 101,” an adult-education class that combines screenings with celebrity interviews.
The routine: “My wife [Zora] has an extraordinary range of talents—cooking is not one of them,” jokes Brown. “We go out for dinner a lot.” To that end, they have dined at Strip House every Monday at 7pm for the past five years. “We first came shortly after the restaurant opened—the food was superb, the noise was intolerable,” he explains. “I like solving knotty problems. I said let’s go early. Let’s go on a Monday night. Let’s sit in the lounge. Each of these factors reduces the decibel level.”
The order: “It’s embarrassing to admit it, but we are not adventuresome people,” says Professor Brown of his regular repast. “What we want to do is get something exactly right.” He orders a Caesar salad—hold the anchovies—and a 22-ounce bone-in rib eye. He often shares both dishes with Zora (she gets the bone), along with a side of green beans—without garlic. “When we’re up for a thrilling adventure, I’ll sometimes say, ‘What the hell! You live once! Put the garlic in the string beans!’”
The charm: Brown, who has interviewed everyone from Scorsese to Clooney in his classroom, has a knack for attracting successful people. In the West Village brownstone that he and his wife once owned, he rented space to an impressive roster of before-they-were-famous tenants. “There was one apartment on the second floor where this guy lived who was a playwright. His name was Tom Eyen—he went on to write Dreamgirls. When he moved out this young girl moved in who wanted to be a fashion designer. Her name was Betsey Johnson. When Betsey moved out there was this young guy who had moved into the city from Long Island and he wanted to go into the restaurant business—his name was Drew Nieporent. And when Drew moved out, there was another guy who moved in and he wanted to work in high fashion. His name was Michael Kors. They were all our tenants.… It was almost like a Broadway play.”

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