If you're planning to be anywhere near Harrisburg, PA, this restaurant is a must go-to.
This is a truly awesome, fantastic upscale steakhouse with a beautiful, modern decor located inside the Hilton Hotel in Harrisburg, PA. My wife and I recently had to go there for a wedding and our time of arrival wasn't supposed to be until long after the restaurant closed, but we managed to catch an early connector and saw that we were going to be at the hotel at 8:45pm. While en route, I got online and saw that they close at 9pm, so I looked at their menu and made the dinner selections for my wife and I, then called the restaurant to see if they could accept our order and let us take it up to our room. They were very cooperative and approved our request, so I gave them the order. While still traveling I received a call back from them stating that they were out of one of the items I wanted and would I consider something else. The food on their menu looked so good that I had no problem picking out a substitute and I greatly appreciated the fact that they even called me. When we arrived, our food wasn't ready yet, so they offered to deliver the food to our room. In a little while they came to our room and the food was nice and hot. I had the seared foie gras and the 14 oz. bone-in filet mignon and the both of them were absolutely perfect with the foie gras nice and sweet with a caramel flavor from the cooking, and the filet mignon the most tender and tastiest of any piece of meat I've ever had and cooked exactly to order. What I found out was the name 1700 Degrees stands for the fact that they sear the meat at this extremely high temperature for a very short period of time, then finish cooking it in an oven. They even have a great selection of rare cuts of lamb, pork and veal, in addition to rounding out their menu with nice choices of seafood, risotto, grits and more. I only had one small issue, and it was that they took it upon themselves to include a tip just for carrying the food up to my room, which is what I was supposed to do in the first place. However, I always tip, and I would've left a very good amount for this dinner, so it didn't bother me much at all. It's been 34 years since I was last in Harrisburg but now, I'll try to think of any reason to come back up here just to go to this outstanding restaurant. NOTE: If you view their menu online, there are two different dinner menus depending upon how you search for it; the "full dinner menu" has beautiful photos of every serving, but the prices don't seem to be accurate, and the plain "dinner menu" just has descriptions of the food with no photos, but the prices are correct. We were attending the wedding Saturday, were free on Sunday, and we would've gone there again but they're closed that day. We ourselves live in our own state's capital city but there aren't any food establishments which dare to come close to the quality of this food; indeed, you would be hard pressed to find this quality of food anywhere.
By Marty