Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
1000 Washington
Downtown
314-241-1000
Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat
Average Main Course: $33
Reservations: Don’t leave home without ’em.
Dress: Chic carnivore couture
Chef: Ray Carpenter
Drop by the sleek, cocktail lounge–type bar as you enter Prime 1000. The ceiling soars; those groovy ’60s lights once hanging in the old Kitchen K’s dining space are more attractively arranged here. There’s plenty of comfortable table seating. Sit. Order the Cakebread cab. And the carpaccio, three beautiful, ruby mounds of gossamer-sliced beef. Matched with them is a trio of golf ball–sized pots of “dressings.” In one are slivers of arugula, pungent garlic nibbles, and truffle oil. Another holds a citrusy ponzu sauce spiked with black garlic and minced cilantro with a froth of ginger bubbles. In the last, smoky nibbles of shimeji and shiitake mushrooms meet a reduction of sweet apples and ivory shavings of Grana Padano. If this seriously good appetizer doesn’t convince you dinner is in order here, there’s no need to read on.
But you have—read on, that is. So take the Cakebread to your table, and stay for dinner. The Wash. Ave. space still looks a little like the old Kitchen K dining room. It’s a bit warmer, though, with giant cocoon light shades adding a soft glow. Brown linen-decked tables, handsome flatware and service, and department store–size windows all make for a stylish ambience.
The name—and that appetizer—is a broad hint: Connoisseurs of cow will adore Prime 1000. From a reasonable 8-ounce filet to a daunting 22-ounce porterhouse, the cuts here are all top-grade and mostly dry-aged. The action’s less than heart-racing, but you can watch the aging process if you like: In a glass-fronted case that looks like it might be holding Lenin on ice, shelves are stacked with blocks of Himalayan salt to desiccate the atmosphere inside, along with hunks of beef.
There are choices here. Good ones. Grass-fed or corn-fed? A New York strip, rib-eye, and filet all did some grass-grazing; the meat is leaner, with a more “mineral” taste. Corn-fed beef is more richly marbled, often juicier. Either way, steaks arrive with a caramelized crust, tender, cooked to order. The expertise at the grill, the care in aging and preparation, is tasted with every forkful.
Another pleasant choice: sauce for your meat. There’s candied bacon jus. Crème fraîche studded with crumbles of blue cheese. Butter whipped with the iodine smack of uni (sea urchin). An elixir of balsamic vinegar with wild mushrooms. The best bet for a purist is a first-rate reduction of veal stock with cabernet gurgled in to make a rich, purply syrup.
Of course, we just had to be different. We went with a roasted half-chicken. It arrived still sizzling, the golden skin crusted, as deliciously sweet as the meat underneath was glistening and tender. A purée of celery root complements it, while a luxurious splash of truffle-infused jus adds another enjoyable element. Other nonbeef offerings include pan-seared black bass, ocean trout, and a dish that one of our party noted contains “not a single word I don’t like”: Olive oil–poached New Zealand lamb rack, with parsnip purée, minted zucchini, and harissa jus. The Kiwi ribs are tender, cooked by the sous vide process (vacuum-sealed in a pouch and cooked under hot water), then briefly grilled.
It’s easy to be distracted by the thick slices of airy bread and saffron-tinted butter that arrive after you’re seated. A focus on appetizers, though, is necessary. There are some excellent ones. Cubes of smoky pork accompany a platter of fried sweetbreads lathered with an emulsion of roasted artichoke and truffles. Shishito, slender emerald peppers—lightly charred as a sake-drinking nibble in Japan—taste like a slightly hotter version of bell peppers. Since they mysteriously choose to celebrate winter in our summer, New Zealand’s Coromandel oysters are at their peak right now. A half-dozen of the beauties, famous for their “watermelon” finish, make a fine starter, especially with a smoked cocktail sauce for dipping.
Sides, invariably an afterthought in most steak joints, are a whole different ballgame here. Your Aunt Bert used to say, “I could make a meal of this,” when she tucked into the green-bean casserole at family dinners. At Prime, any side would have Aunt Bert swooning: Scalloped sweet potatoes. Smoked white cheddar–cheese macaroni. Potatoes with a ruinously rich Roquefort gratin. The only side that might disappoint Aunt Bert was an indifferently presented twice-baked potato.
A blue-cheese vinaigrette simply overpowers a Bibb lettuce salad. The slices of avocado cut the puckering astringency of the dressing some, but it’s just too tart. A perfectly hard-boiled quail’s egg tops a far better salad choice, romaine hearts with a shard of cold-smoked ham speck, an anchovy, and crunchy crostini. The same speck shows up in a delightful soup of puréed carrots and fragrant elderflowers.
All that beef—how come so few Burgundies or Bordeaux? Odd. Still, you’ll do fine with that Cakebread or some of the other cabs, or with one of the affordable Meritage wines that are imminently comfortable with beef.
Leave the squash bread and dulce de leche ice cream “French toast” to the dessert pros; it packs roughly the same sugar punch as mainlining Kool-Aid. Instead, go with a “terrine” of pear with mascarpone and pistachios.
Prime 1000 is among the “new” steakhouses, most of them modeled on Wolfgang Puck’s Cut. The emphasis is on the meat; still, attention to details like the excellent sides, along with a sophisticated atmosphere, make this place a true standout in downtown St. Louis.
The Bottom Line: Great steak. Excellent, inspired sides. Cool, fashionable atmosphere.
WEB EXCLUSIVE: THE SKINNY ON GRASS-FED BEEF
“Grass-fed beef” is a phrase that in some corners of the Carnivorous Republic of ours resonates like the speaker system in that ’78 Celica you drove back in college. The mineral-flavored richness, the profusion of life-giving omega-3 acids; enthusiasts rave about grass fed beef with all the dewy-eyed enthusiasm of an Oprah show audience member who’s just plucked the free Michael Bublé CD from under her seat.
The image of a cow, tipsy on sparkling spring water, ambling happily across the lush emerald swale, munching hock-deep on clover, leading a life of bovine contentment so profound he eventually and gratefully throws himself on the grill for our dining pleasure is a nice thought. And there’s no doubt grass-fed beef has its culinary moments on the palate. Before you get too excited about the wonders of turf-tasty steaks, however, a couple of points to keep in mind:
First, just because an animal grows up on a diet of lawn doesn’t ensure it’s going to taste good. You learned that the hard way, remember, with Uncle Floyd’s famous grilled bunny a la King that unfortunate Easter. No matter what it eats, the individual breed of cattle plays a significant role in the taste of the steaks into which a cow is eventually transformed. The majority of future rib eyes and sirloins out there today come from Angus beef. That’s because Angus mature up to market size quickly, no matter what they’re fed, and because they are reliable in the texture, grain, and marbling of the meat. Yes, you could feed an Angus and a Guernsey a diet of nothing but sweet Timothy grass and in fact, as a result Bossy the Guernsey could easily qualify as Prime according to USDA standards. Doesn’t mean she’s going to taste like an Angus, though.
Second, and just as important, “grass-fed” is like “synergy,” and “empowerment.” It sounds good, but when you start looking at it more closely, it’s actually pretty vague. Grass isn’t just grass, and terroir has as much meaning in terms of forage as it does when talking about the soil in which a grapevine is planted. In Montana, for example, beef cattle tend to graze on alfalfa and brome grass. Their flesh will have a different taste than a cow that dined in a pasture in Minnesota, for example, where fescue and timothy are predominant. Not to go all Green Acres County Agent Hank Kimball on you, but his distinction applies even locally. In northern Missouri, a lot of cattle graze on orchard grass and alfalfa that’s mixed liberally with brome grass. But here’s the deal: farmers up there like to cut hay early in the season and they like to cut it short. That means that latter-seeding brome grass, even if it’s in the field, won’t play a big role in the cow’s hay diet. In southwest Missouri, Bermuda grass is popular as a pasture forage. So a Porterhouse from a “grass-fed” cow on Howe Farms in Meadville, in northern Missouri, will taste different than a grass-fed Porterhouse from a herd in Ozark County. And they’ll both taste different from a steak that came from a Montana cow.
Still another factor that can affect the flavor of grass fed beef is the very quality that makes it so wonderful in the estimation of many: yes, those omega-3 fatty acids are higher in grass-fed beef than in their corn-gobbling cousins. And eating lots of those O-3s will probably allow you to live until the 23rd century, give you the resting heart rate of an Olympic runner and enable you to successfully program your TV remote control. But omega-3s, like all other fatty acids impart both a taste and an aroma that can turn off a lot of steak lovers. That’s why grass-fed beef is sometimes described as “gamey,” “liverish,” or “too strong.” And while there is a higher level of omega-3 fatty acids in grass-fed beef, it’s kind of ironic that it’s most strident fans also tout the lack of fat in that beef. Less fat means less fat: including less of the omega-3 kind. That same lack of fat makes cooking grass-fed beef much trickier. Without the marbling, grass-fed steaks cook much like venison: fast and, unless expertly watched over, quickly dry. Again, ironically, some steak houses compensate—by adding lots of butter to the pan. In other words, fat.
(Remember, by the way, that “grass-fed” and “organic” are not synonymous. Synthetic fertilizers and herbicides are liberally sprayed on pasturelands where some grass-fed beef graze.)
It’s the inconsistency in taste that will always limit the popularity of grass-fed beef. Using the same suppliers who butcher cattle from the same farms can provide some consistency. But there’s no way the average restaurant or steakhouse can manage to profit or to provide enough meat through that process. Some high-end restaurants can and will continue to offer grass-fed beef as long as it’s popular. But it’s not going to replace corn-fed cow anytime soon, for another simple reason: there isn’t going to be enough of it. A cow requires about one and a half acres, under the best of conditions, to grow to eating size. As we’re sitting here, contemplating a New York strip for dinner this evening, there are about 100 million head of the animals that provide that steak. Sure, we’ve got a lot of wide open range. But not nearly enough to support all those bovine numbers. It’s likely that a grass-fed steak is, for the future, to be a part of an occasional meal, enjoyed by those who want the extraordinary taste and are willing to pay for it.
