Cocoa-braised beef short ribs at KO Prime

^{Photo: JOEL VEAK}

The love of a man for a well-grilled steak is one of food writing's hoariest clichés. But it's true: given their druthers, most guys will opt not for the great local seafood place, the famous celebrity-chef venue, nor the trendy It Place, but a high-end steakhouse. After all, we are uncomplicated creatures, or we like to channel our inner cavemen, or we know exactly what we want. Or we lack imagination when it comes to food - you make the call. While a giant steak isn't usually my big-night-out preference (I can grill a pretty good version in my backyard), I fully grasp the clubby, chummy, testosterone-laden appeal of the luxe beef palace.

Given that downtown Boston alone has 14 iterations of this concept (at last count - there are more on the way), it's reasonable to ask, what makes one any different from another? Most provide the same kind of atmosphere, aping the feel of an old-money private men's club for those of us who weren't to the manor born. Many feature beef from the same giant commodity producers and serve the same array of side dishes: giant bowls of creamed spinach, baked potatoes the size of Shaq's fist, grilled asparagus, and $10 mac and cheese. The trophy wine lists look mostly the same, as do the 14-ounce martinis. How about a beloved local celebrity chef on the marquee? That's something KO Prime (90 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.772.0202) boasts that the others can't.

Servers here are polished veterans supported by excellent service waiters, and the kitchen can hit some heights, as in a perfectly French frisée aux lardons salad ($11) with poached egg, cubes of great house-cured bacon, and Marcona almonds. The gorgeous slab of cocoa-braised beef short ribs ($31) sits atop creamy polenta bedecked with baby carrots, sliced radishes, and bits of edible flowers. Anybody could polish off the 12-ounce Meyer Angus New York strip steak ($37); it takes a real trencherman to defeat the incredibly tender, fatty richness of that short rib. Not all of the virtues of Ken Oringer's other venues carry over: the shades-of-brown décor is a little hotel-generic (even with the ceiling's arty American Gothic motif), the bartending isn't always 100 percent (pouring an ungarnished Manhattan), and, most ironically, the grade of beef is choice, not prime. But the big, well-behaved bachelor parties and businessmen entertaining their customers here don't seem to notice. As long as exec chef Josh Buehler brings the high-end meat and potatoes and keeps it this simple and satisfying, KO Prime will remain a guys' go-to destination.