Smoky's Club   

3005 University Ave
Madison, WI 53705
608-233-2120
www.smokysclub.com

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"Eclectic" doesn't do justice in describing the decor at this popular steakhouse, where owners Leonard and Janet Schmock have been wowing customers since 1953 with steaks voted number one in the Midwest. A stuffed 38-pound muskellunge (that's a really big pike) greets customers at the bar and holds court over a scattered melange of knickknacks and tchotchkes. Most eye-catching is the food, however, particularly the fillets, which have been compared by one reviewer to "two big fists stacked atop one another." The steaks are served as simply as possible: on a dented metal platter with a flourish of garnish and a knife large enough to hunt the animal that the steak came from. But don't touch the platter -- it's been heated for hours in a 500-degree oven, which is how that cracklin' sizzle happens when a steak is plopped on it. They serve chicken and seafood, including broiled African lobster tail and Canadian walleyed pike (not the guy up on the wall), but you know the real reason you came here, and it rhymes with "lake." The bar is open until midnight, but the restaurant is closed by 10pm, and all day Tuesdays and Sundays -- perhaps to give your arteries a rest.