Steak the Great: When Seeing Red Means Feeling Good
A food feature and headlining article for Where Y’at’s quarterly Restaurant Guide, this tabloid-sized two-page profiled every restaurant in the city of New Orleans with the designation “steakhouse.” Using lush descriptions to highlight each establishment’s claim to fame and including notes on price point and suitable occasions, this article has become a reference for where to go for red meat.
Steak the Great: When Seeing Red Means Feeling Good
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Beef has taken quite a few blows to the ego in the past few years, with talk of saturated fat and rumors of “Mad Cow Disease” scaring those on-the-paddock-rail about red meat. However, for diehard bovine fans like myself, none of that matters. All that’s real in a dining moment is the pure, unadulterated pleasure of cutting into a savory, well-marbled hunk of steak, black and charred at the edges, sitting in a pool of butter, covered in creamy sauce or wine reduction, or naked with coarse salt and cracked pepper.
My love affair with steak doesn’t discriminate— velvety, lean filet mignon, that most prized tenderloin; ribeyes, with their crispy fat running rivulets of flavor throughout; meaty and lean except for one fatty edge describes the New York strip; big, bold, on-the-bone T-bones/Porterhouses, filet on one side and strip on the other. There are many more varieties, but the above is what’s most often served and greedily devoured on special occasions. Best at medium rare, with sealed-in flavor on the outside and a warm, red center to ensure tenderness, chefs will still willingly prepare their beef rare (succulent red center) or medium (hot and mostly pink), but woe to he who orders a steak dry and brown, better known as well-done, at a steakhouse.
Taste is determined by other factors, too, such as grade (Prime, Choice, Select, and Standard, in order of decreasing quality), type of cattle (Angus being one of the most in-demand American breeds), and, interestingly, the way it lived (grass or corn-fed, organic) as well as the way it died (Halal, Kosher).
Now that the crash course is over, rounded up for you like a herd of delectable Wagyu cattle are profiles of the most talked-about steakhouses in town. So keep talking, New Orleans, and enjoy.
Besh Steak
Harrah’s Casino, 228 Poydras St., 533-6111
Don’t let the flashing lights and bursts of noise in the casino fool you—the incomparable (John) Besh Steak, led by Chef Jared Tees, is a far cry from what you’d expect of a typical casino restaurant. Instead, with Rodrigue’s Blue Dogs adorning the walls, it’s more a slice of New Orleans in Las Vegas fine dining heaven. Playful combinations in obsession-worthy appetizers and entrees stimulate your senses as much as the beeps and whirs on the not-so-distant floor. No steak is like any you’ve had before: prime rib, soft and supple with a subtly honeyed Asian flavor, thick filets with marrow butter, a 38 oz. “Cowboy” (bone-in ribeye) draped in Bordelaise, and porterhouses as thick as a fist with garlic butter graced with a peppery kick. Sharing is the only way to leave the table on your feet and not a forklift. $$$ - casual, fine dining; group nights out
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