What would a traditional steakhouse look like stripped of its manly pretenses? Perhaps a place where if you tire of your comfy booth, you can rest your martini on a baby grand piano turned into a table by a piece of protective glass.

This preciousness is clearly aimed at the lovely ladies who stumble in for a shrimp Cobb salad after a hard tour of label-hunting at The Shops at The Bravern (the restaurant is inside the most expensive mall on the Eastside). Their presence, plus personal wine lockers for regulars, mean there are quite a few Microsoft bachelors trolling happy hour. Speaking of wine, the list here is long and lovely, with plenty of steakhouse heavy hitters.

The kitchen is competent, and the steaks, most of which are grilled over mesquite, are suitably picturesque, nicely charred on the outside with at least two or three different shades of pink inside. They know their way around Wagyu, which may appear as tartare, or in an infantilized slider form. Modern American cooking sets John Howie apart from the most traditional steakhouses, but the menu is too schizophrenic, embracing both the old old school (bananas Foster) and fleeting new trends (sliders, over-the-top starters like tempura-fried Kurobuta bacon with maple-sambal-ponzu sauce).