SAM DINGMAN: Durant’s Steakhouse has a front door, but nobody uses it. Instead, you park out back, where a guy in a vest smiles and opens the door to the kitchen.
You find yourself instantly weaving through a crew of cooks in white jackets and servers in pressed button-downs, shouting at each other and handing off plates of deviled eggs and oysters Rockefeller.
“Guest passing through!” they call, nodding at you as you make your way to the dining room — where, if you’re lucky, a longtime regular is waiting at the end of the bar with stories to tell…