Do steakhouses intentionally undercook their steaks? —Jim T., St. Louis
Ten days ago, the New York Post published an article titled “Restaurants are cooking your steak wrong on purpose,” which prompted this query and some investigation.
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The article contends that due to rising beef prices and the fact that a grilled item can be brought up to temperature but not the other way around, the “medium-rare cut is getting rarer, in both senses of the word” and that chefs now err on the rare side.
The article further states that customers expecting medium-rare are now ordering by a new term—medium-rare-plus—to ensure a true medium-rare.
Here in St. Louis, I’ve noticed that steaks do tend to arrive more undercooked than in the past. (The choices are to deal with it, send it back to the grill, or eat around the edges and take the remainder home. I’ve done all three.)
Having never heard the term “medium-rare-plus” personally, I asked several local chefs and steakhouse managers to weigh in on the matter:
Annie Gunn’s executive chef Lou Rook: “In my opinion, nobody undercooks on purpose. We try to nail the temperature every time. Sometimes the problem is misinterpretation [of a temperature] from the other side. As far as pluses go when ordering meats, it does not exist! With all of the information out there—online, in magazines, and in cookbooks—I’ve never seen a plus-scale published.”
Anonymous local steakhouse manager: “I don’t believe anyone purposefully cooks under. It takes too much time to refire the steaks. I do believe that we, as an industry, do cook to the lower side of the temp, however, as you can always cook up but not cook down. Regarding medium-rare-plus, the term is definitely used in St. Louis, usually reserved for finer-dining restaurants, as opposed to more casual chains.”
801 Chophouse general manager Griffin Letch: “I think the idea of intentionally undercooking a guest’s steak is a little ridiculous. No one has the time or the patience to bring all of those steaks back to the broiler to bring them up. While undercooking a steak is slightly better than overcooking, we try to be proactive with our clientele to get them exactly what they want, so we post descriptions of our temperatures on our menu. We also train our serving staff to take what information the guest gives them to help them decide what temperature is most appropriate. A successful night for us is no bring-ups on steak temperatures or steak re-fires because a guest’s steak was overcooked.”
Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse–Clayton general manager Jeff Daniels: “I don’t believe steakhouses purposefully undercook steaks. That said, when I was at Dierdorf & Hart’s, our goal was to be completely honest, so part of our tableside verbiage was that ‘we cook to the rare side.’ At Morton’s, we did get requests for medium-rare-plus. At Ruth’s, we try to discourage pluses, because a ‘plus’ to you might be a ‘standard temp’ to me. In addition, because we serve steaks on 500-degree plates, the broiler man knows that he needs to undershoot it just a bit, since the cooking process continues at the table. No matter the restaurant, considering the cost of prime meat, there’s a lot at stake—no pun intended.”
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