Review: At Prescott's Provisions, fine dining 2025 style on the historic Erie Canal

Avoid steak clip joints for square deal on a square meal in City of Tonawanda's finest spot

16-ounce Delmonico steak at Prescott’s Provisions

In classic parlance, “clip joints” means two types of nightspots where customers are tricked into overpaying.

There’s the exclusive clubs where the bill really should arrive on a crash cart, for the customers realizing they just spent their rent on Patron at $40 a shot. Then there are strip joints, whose exotic dancers are experts at extracting money from customers who have gotten the idea there is more on the menu.

In Buffalo, there’s another type of clip joint. Some of the biggest steak-centric restaurants in town are charging top prices for middling meat. They routinely cheat customers by misrepresenting choice-grade steak as prime.

That’s why Prescott’s Provisions makes my shortlist for steak lovers. Ex-Buffalo Chophouse executive chef Vincent Thompson puts a steak on his menu after he inspects the primal cuts that arrive at his restaurant, before they’re subdivided into Delmonicos and such by his own kitchen team.

Foccacia made with durum wheat, served with Swiss grass-fed butter with 83 percent butterfat, whipped with nutritional yeast and white miso, at Prescott’s Provisions

The beef is just the beginning. That scrupulous attention to detail across the entire menu is why Prescott’s also makes my shortlist for blowout celebration dinners, the rare occasions when you make sure your beloveds - and maybe even yourself - get what you really want. Next to the historic Erie Canal, Prescott’s Provisions is redefining fine dining for 2025 and beyond.