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.

Owner Don Benoit built Prescott’s Provisions from an auto repair shop on the City of Tonawanda side of Gateway Harbor, where Erie Canal meets the Niagara River. Turning seven in June, Prescott’s customers have benefited mightily from the fact that its owner was in the construction business first. It’s expanded from 65 to about 150 seats, and isn’t done yet.

A windowed wine room, new bathrooms and a side room for more diners are among the additions. This year should see a roof added to the canal-facing patio, and a solution for the vestibule, which can get crowded with waiting customers during cold weather. In the back of the house, kitchen expansion allowed for a cold line and a hot line, plus an expanded dish pit to cope with the increased volume.

Details like house-cut shoestring fries helps Prescott’s Provisions soar.

That all had to happen in speedy fashion to bring Prescott’s Provisions into its adolescent stage. Reservations were always a good idea, but the demand is growing.

Because of the details. That housemade focaccia ($9) is made of hard durum wheat, providing more textural character. That butter is from a Swiss herd of grass-fed cows, arriving at 83 percent butterfat. Cooks whip in toasted nutritional yeast and a skosh of white miso for the umami-est bread spread yet.

Gnocchetti Bolognese ($29) posits ridged housemade shell pasta and a patiently simmered ragu of beef and pork. Instead of buying ground meat for its ragu, Thompson said, Prescott’s uses about 15 percent 24-month-old prosciutto, and trim from wagyu short ribs, prime strips, and Berkshire pork.

No wonder it tastes like a moment to remember.

Carnivale squash ravioli, brown butter, winter truffles, at Prescott’s Provisions

Carnival squash ravioli ($39) was another fresh pasta of the moment, arriving dressed in brown butter, showered with shaved Burgundy truffles and adorned with pine nuts.

Slow cooked halibut ($45), with smoked potatoes, taggiasca olives, and saffron rouille, was the most swoonful fish I’ve eaten in forever. Not seared, just judiciously set with heat, fish becomes yielding, even lush, custard of the sea. Earthy potatoes added smoke without fire, fruity tomato and briny olives hosannah in harmony, sealed with a warm, luxurious kiss of garlic from the rouille.

In short: Doors blown off. Hammered the leftovers the next day, warm, after my better judgement interfered with my impulse to wolf it down cold. It deserved better.

Halibut, smoked potatoes, saffron rouille, at Prescott’s Provisions

Then there was the steak, in this case a 16-ounce Delmonico ($59), with creamed Swiss chard, crispy garlic potatoes, and blue cheese butter. Other beef bets included prime N.Y. strip steak frites ($56) with house-cut shoestring fries, caramelized onions, and garlic butter. A5 Wagyu is an upscale option.

Coated with custom spice rub, seared over hardwood coals and turned every 30 seconds or so, a Prescott’s steak is deeply crusted, not just charred, and dialed-in to your preferred doneness.

There’s no white tablecloths, but don’t mistake that for casualness. Buffalo restaurant veteran Roo Buckley oversees the front of house as head server, setting a fine-dining tone without starched white linen stiffness.

Young pitcher wielders scan the room for half-full water glasses. Cocktail artists can offer bespoke tipples or run up originals from customer-provided clues. Wine fanciers face a by-the-glass list full of discoveries.

Fine dining requires fantastic finishes. Prescott’s Provisions’ commitment to excellence includes employing a dedicated pastry chef, Carly Palmiero. The desserts are $16. If that makes you flinch, ask yourself why you’d spend that on a cocktail, and get your priorities in order.

Brown butter pistachio cake, rum caramel, at Prescott’s Provisions

There’s always a brown butter cake, this time brown butter pistachio, with rum caramel, pistachio brittle, vanilla gelato and poached pear.

Apple napoleon, ginger and lemongrass pastry cream, puff pastry, at Prescott’s Provisions

Chocolate is a necessity, as in almond daquoise layered with espresso cream, chocolate ganache, with espresso gelato. Or gentle wisps of fruit and spice, a la apple napoleon, ginger and lemongrass pastry cream, puff pastry, and apple.

The work of its principals and their principled attention to the fine points makes this former oil change parlor a splurge palace with deep enough game to bring you back for a pizza and a glass of wine at the bar.

If you only get to go big once or twice a year, you owe it to yourself to make sure you leave happy. Skip the clip joints and head to Prescott’s Provisions when there’s a lot at steak.