RESTAURANT NEWS | NEW YORK

Inside Reserve Steakhouse, Darian Bryan’s Next Big Buffalo Move

RESERVE STEAKHOUSE | MAP | INSTAGRAM

By Maria Rodriguez
6:57 a.m. ET, June 23, 2026

AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a regular at your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in magazines from Spain to Seattle.

Darian Bryan’s first major move after winning Next Level Chef is Reserve Steakhouse, a Buffalo restaurant built around prime beef, seafood, cocktails, and the Buffalo neighborhood where he has already done some of his most important work.

Bryan teamed up again with his wife and business partner, Jessica Darian, to open Reserve in Larkinville. It’s the same neighborhood where he opened his restaurants Bratts Hill, Jerk Hut, and The Plating Society. Bryan had a local following before national television arrived. Winning Season 5 of Gordon Ramsay’s cooking competition just made the audience much bigger.

Reserve Steakhouse by Chef Darian Bryan Buffalo New York Steak

The steakhouse format gives him a broader stage but still with Buffalo making an appearance. The prime New York strip “on weck” comes with horseradish foam and kimmelweck au jus, which is about as local as a steakhouse reference can get. His steak au poivre, built around an 8-ounce prime tenderloin and brandy cream sauce, gets a “Next Level” nod on the menu.

Reserve Steakhouse by Chef Darian Bryan Buffalo New York

Reserve also works beyond the beef. There are PEI oysters with seasonal mignonette, steak tartare with black garlic and cured egg yolk, tuna crudo with Peruvian golden chili sauce, caramelized miso sea bass, seared scallops with corn succotash, rack of lamb with pistachio and cranberry, and rigatoni alla vodka.

Reserve Steakhouse by Chef Darian Bryan Buffalo NY

The restaurant takes over the former Eckl’s space, with private dining and a bar program that gives the project more range than a straight special-occasion steakhouse. A second concept, Back of House Burger, is expected to follow in the same building, extending the Darian and Bryan footprint in Larkinville again.

Reserve Steakhouse by Chef Darian Bryan Buffalo New York Burger

For Bryan, Reserve feels less like a hard pivot than a widening of the frame. The TV win may have made him a national name, but the restaurant keeps the story in Buffalo, near the kitchens that made people pay attention to him first.