After a quarter century in the Triangle restaurant business, Giorgios Bakatsias is at the peak of his game. He has established himself as one of the area's savviest restaurateurs -- and certainly its most prolific. With his record, many of us would be tempted to sit back contentedly.

Not Bakatsias.

Last September, he opened Bin 54 in Chapel Hill. It is the fulfillment of his long-held desire to open a steakhouse in tribute to the first meal he ate as a 12-year-old immigrant to America: a steak.

Bin 54 is hardly your typical traditional American steakhouse, however, as anyone familiar with Bakatsias' other restaurants might have guessed. His famous flair for dramatic decor is evident in a cosmopolitan style whose palette of black leather, burgundy suede, sumptuous fabrics and Brazilian cherry floors would be at home in New York or San Francisco.

I should warn you, the same can be said of the prices. Folks in the big cities are accustomed to $75 steaks (not including sides, which will set you back another $6-$8 apiece), but in these parts that's apt to cause some jaw-dropping.

To be fair, the $75 tab is for a 32-ounce prime T-bone for two. Other prices range from $21 for hanger steak to $55 for American Kobe rib-eye (bonus points to the menu, by the way, for being up front about the origin of the Kobe). You can even score a 10-ounce burger -- including fries -- for $14.

Even if you're slack-jawed going in, rest assured that you'll be grinning from ear to ear on the way out. The food -- and I don't just mean the steaks, but pretty much everything that comes out of the kitchen -- is that good. That's partly because the kitchen is run by chef Dale Ray, whose culinary career began as a high school student working part time at Parizade and who has since filled out his resume with the likes of Citronelle, Charlie Trotter's and The Inn at Little Washington. And it's partly because Ray is working with the very finest ingredients that money can buy.

You know you're living stratospherically high on the hog when an exemplary presentation of pan-seared foie gras on a crispy polenta cake with poached pears and fig butter isn't the most impressive starter. That honor would have to go to tuna tartare -- not just any tuna, mind you, but big eye toro flown in from the waters off Hawaii -- dressed in a citrus-spiked creamy soy dressing and served in cup-shaped wasabi crackers. On the other hand, a strong case could be made for caramelized sea scallops with sauteed chanterelles served on a mound of truffled potato puree. And all bets are off if the soup of the day is a cream of spinach whose silken surface is punctuated with poached Chesapeake Bay oysters.

In addition to the steaks mentioned above, options include a dry aged Kansas City strip, filet mignon, hanger steak and a 22-ounce Prime bone-in rib-eye. I'm partial to the rib-eye, but the quality is superb across the board and steaks are grilled over hardwood coals consistently spot-on to temperature, so you're safe in picking your personal favorite.

Steaks are simply seasoned -- according to general manager Brett Davis, with "sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and fire - then we finish them with a little brown butter." Half a dozen house-made sauces and condiments, from bearnaise to blue cheese, are available to jazz up your steak. Try one if you like, but trust me: You won't need them.

You will, however, want to order a couple of side dishes. And you'll want to make sauteed king trumpet mushrooms one of them. These will spoil you for steakhouse mushrooms for life.

Entree options for non-beefeaters include a hefty 16-ounce Niman Ranch pork chop and juniper berry-crusted venison saddle strip loin, both grilled to order. The seafood offering changes with the market but usually includes a big slab of that sashimi-grade Hawaiian tuna, lightly dusted with Szechwan peppercorns and grilled, and an even more decadent butter-poached Maine lobster.

Just nine months after opening, the service at Bin 54 is already nearly on a par with the best in the Triangle. Even so, it's the weak link in a very strong chain and will need a bit more polish before it lives up to the restaurant's obvious aim of providing a transcendent dining experience.

If the staff err at all, it's on the side of overeagerness -- as when our waiter served the last pieces of T-bone (which is served in the French style, with the meat removed from the bone in large pieces) to my wife and me before we could tell him we'd had enough and would like to have them boxed. Then he rushed off with the bone (which I'd counted on as a luxurious treat for my Labrador retriever) and threw it in the trash before we could stop him.

Pastry chef Gwen Cummings Maller's desserts offer a suitable conclusion to the steakhouse splurge with lavish renderings of all-American classics ranging from banana pudding to PB&J tart. While you're at it, you might as well go all out with an after dinner drink -- maybe a bottle of '97 Chateau d'Yquem sauterne, just one of the nearly 300 offerings which make up one of the area's most impressive wine lists. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.

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