Council Oak Steaks & Seafood

Walking into a casino steakhouse, you brace for the worst on wine — overpriced house pours, a list built around brand recognition, and markups that would make your eyes water. Council Oak mostly defies that expectation. The glass-enclosed wine case is a nice touch, and the by-the-glass prices feel almost aggressively reasonable for a room where dinner for two clears $150 before drinks.

The list leans heavily California and Italy, which is exactly what you'd expect from a classic American steakhouse — and there's nothing wrong with playing to your strengths when you execute it well. You'll find familiar names like Sonoma-Cutrer and Franciscan anchoring the whites, with Italian options like Maso Canali Pinot Grigio and Michele Chiarlo's Moscato adding some depth on the lighter side. Washington gets a nod too, though the list doesn't venture far off the beaten path into Walla Walla or anything adventurous. If you came hoping for a Burgundy deep-dive or a natural wine flight, wrong room — but if you want solid, crowd-friendly bottles that work with a bone-in ribeye, Council Oak delivers.

Ten-plus options by the glass is respectable for a steakhouse, and the $9–$15 price band is genuinely hard to argue with in this zip code. The selection skews toward approachable whites and bubbles — Mumm Brut Prestige, Beolio Prosecco, La Marca Rosé — which work well as aperitifs but leave you doing a little more work once the steaks land. A few more red options in rotation would round this program out considerably.