Great beef goes beautifully with full-bodied red wines, and it seems that more and more Americans just can't resist a juicy steak. Rib-eye, sirloin and filet mignon are the sizzling stars of the latest dining trend. Over the past three years, steakhouses have shown substantial expansion, bulging sales and a meaty bottom line. Prior to 1993, however, beef consumption was on the decline as health-conscious consumers eschewed red meat.

It seemed as if the downward spiral would never end, but steak, that traditional symbol of indulgence and success, is back in a big way. The ultimate self-gratifying feast may not be a weekly habit, but it is surely becoming a monthly one. According to the National Cattleman's Beef Association, the volume in fine-dining steakhouses has increased an unprecedented 22 percent between 1993 and 1995. This year alone, Americans are expected to consume an average of 66.9 pounds of beef per person.

The steakhouse is a quintessential American institution evolving from the taverns and chophouses of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries. It came into its own in the post-Civil War era when beef became an integral part of the American diet thanks to improvements in refrigeration and transportation. After Prohibition ended in 1933, steakhouses prospered. They were an offshoot of the men's club and continue to appeal to male tastes in both decor and service.

Classic steakhouse menus offer generous portions of what many health-conscious diners would consider all the wrong foods: prime beef, chops, lobster, fried potatoes and cheesecake.

So what's going on here? Some observers attribute the steak stampede to the very baby boomers who led the fitness trend. They have reached an age where they no longer want to be told what to eat. This backlash is labeled "pleasure revenge" by trend forecaster Faith Popcorn in her book Clicking. "We have come to realize that even if we do everything right, terrible things can still happen," she writes. "Since life isn't necessarily fair and just ... it might make us feel better to have those delicious, beer-battered onion rings." Or the occasional porterhouse steak.


Tammy Firestone, director of marketing for Morton's of Chicago, agrees. "People still care about nutrition and health. They believe in exercise, but they've found a middle ground, and they're saying, 'I want to treat myself.'"
Palate memories and a tradition of satisfying American appetites are what steak is all about. Amid all the interest over the latest culinary trends - East-West Fusion, New World Cuisine and Tex-Mex - there seems to be a growing nostalgia for the straight-forward and ingenuous American foods of yesteryear. The steakhouse concept of providing hearty, generous fare is the antithesis of the 1980s nouvelle cuisine trend that typically showcased minuscule portions arranged on a pool of sauce. The oversize dinner plate is the only legacy that has endured from the era, only now, the plate comes laden to the rim with food.

Instead of firing up the grill, beef lovers are making reservations at upscale steakhouses like Capital Grille, Morton's of Chicago, Palm Restaurant of New York, Shula's Steak House and Smith & Wollensky. The typical steakhouse embellishments include cottage fries or hash browns, rich, creamed spinach, plump asparagus spears drenched in hollandaise, crispy fried onion rings and New York-style cheesecake - foods that are also unlikely to be prepared at home.

Cooking beef at high temperatures gives it a crusty exterior and a rare, juicy center, which is why steaks cooked properly in a professional kitchen simply taste better than those grilled or broiled at home. The intense heat of a restaurant grill (1,000 degrees or more) sears and caramelizes the surface of the meat in a way the home grill cannot.

Only about 2 percent of all the beef produced in this country is graded prime, and most of it is sold to top steakhouses, leaving little available for the home cook. Unlike some of the leaner cuts found in grocery stores, prime beef is marbled with thin veins of fat, making it more juicy, flavorful, tender and expensive.

Although most steakhouses age their beef, there is a lively debate about the best aging process. Both dry and wet aging add flavor and tenderness by allowing the enzymes to break down the connective tissue in the meat, but the two processes impart distinctly different flavors. Dry aging, in which fresh meat is hung in cold lockers for an average of 21 days, is essential for flavor. During aging, the connective tissues holding the muscle deteriorates, increasing tenderness, and moisture evaporates, resulting in a firmer texture and a more concentrated beef flavor. Drying times vary from two to four weeks, depending on the cut of meat and personal preferences. The practice of aging meat in this manner - without packaging under controlled temperatures, humidity and air flow to ensure flavor and tenderness - is an expensive, time-consuming process, and the end result is that there is less beef to sell.

Wet aging is accomplished simply by keeping the meat in Cryovac bags at controlled temperatures. This method is becoming more common as economics begin to favor slaughtering, butchering and packaging beef where it is raised, and then shipping it directly to restaurants. The moisture loss is not as great, and the meat tends to be fresher tasting than does dry-aged. Some people swear by the "nutty" taste of dry-aged beef; others don't like it.

In an effort to serve consumers willing to splurge on the best USDA prime beef, New York's 72-year-old, family-owned Palm restaurant has opened 14 locations - from Miami to Los Angeles.

Pio Bozzi and John Ganzi, the entrepreneurs who founded Palm in 1926, specialized in cuisine from their native home of Parma, Italy. According to Palm folklore, the partners wanted to call the restaurant "Parma," but when they applied for a business license the clerk heard "Palm" from the heavily accented men.

Actors, artists, writers, musicians and politicians who frequented Palm are immortalized in caricatures on the walls of the flagship restaurant on Second Avenue. "We try to capture the atmosphere of the original Palm in each new restaurant - from the cartoons on the walls to the size of the steak," says Ray Jacomo, manager of the Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, location.

Palm runs its own meat wholesale company to ensure the quality of its steak. All the beef is prime and wet-aged before it is shipped, except for the steaks served in New York which are traditionally dry-aged. Palm has a core wine list of about 100 choices at reasonable prices featuring well-known California labels, as well as wines from Italy, France and South America. There are still Italian specialties like veal Milanese or linguine with white clam sauce on the menu, but it's the steak - caramelized and crusty on the outside and bursting with juice within - the crisp hash browns, cottage fries, thin, sweet, fried onion rings (ask for half and half - cottage fries and onion rings), bubbling-hot creamed spinach and New York cheesecake that patrons come to eat. With their ample servings of steak and lobster, the average Palm restaurant generates $4 million in annual revenue.

"There are many great steakhouses in New York, but none can match Palm for making the customers feel like they are part of the family," says Christopher Gilman, managing director of both New York Palms.

The Big Apple has more than its share of steakhouses. Many believe that the ultimate is Smith & Wollensky. Allen Stillman of The New York Restaurant Group (a company that owns Cité, Manhattan Ocean Club, The Post House, Park Avenue Café, Maloney & Porceli and Smith & Wollensky) opened the restaurant 20 years ago. He has begun to build on the success of the New York Smith & Wollensky, two names picked randomly from the New York phone book, by opening look-alike restaurants in Miami Beach, Chicago, New Orleans and Las Vegas. "Nothing seems to slow down its phenomenal success," says Arthur Forgette, manager of the Florida outpost. "The appeal of steakhouses with their warm, boisterous, turn-of-the-century ambiance and great beef has never waned, especially in New York. The rest of the country is now catching up," Forgette says. The steaks are dry-aged to delicious perfection on the premises. A blackboard lists the daily specials, which may include crackling pork shank with firecracker applesauce, swordfish, London broil or other selections of fish, seafood, poultry and lamb.

The New York restaurant's extraordinary wine collection - valued at more than $1 million - includes domestic and imported labels from a 100,000-bottle cellar specializing in one of the largest selections of Bordeaux and California Cabernets in the world. Twice a year (this year April 20-24 and again in September), Smith & Wollensky offers a wide variety of fine wines as a complimentary accompaniment during lunch. It costs the company about $100,000 - but gives customers an opportunity to taste wines they otherwise may not sample.

At each of its locations, Wollensky's Grill, a side room adjacent to the main dining room, features signature dishes from the house menu in slightly smaller portions, and at lower prices. One may also purchase Smith & Wollensky to go - everything from aged steaks, to its signature steak sauce and steak knives.

Chicago's reputation as a great steak town lives on, despite the fact that its stockyards closed in 1971. The city's best beef now comes from Midwest packing houses, but the lines are still long at the door of steakhouses like Morton's of Chicago.

Former Playboy Club executives Arnie Morton and Klaus Fritsch opened the first Morton's on North State Street in 1978. Since then, it has become a chain with 38 U.S. locations. The restaurants all share the same menu and masculine, clubby atmosphere, exhibition kitchen, LeRoy Neiman serigraphs and Frank Sinatra soundtracks. A bit of theater is thrown in as young, enthusiastic servers bring a display of raw steak, veal, lobster, jumbo asparagus and gargantuan Idaho potatoes tableside to showcase the day's selection.

To ensure uniformity and quality, prime beef is butchered, wet-aged for two to three weeks and shipped from Chicago to each Morton's location. The smoked salmon is sourced from Seattle, the lobster from Boston and the cheesecake from New York City.

A typical Morton's customer might begin with lump crabmeat with mustard sauce, or broiled sea scallops wrapped in bacon, and then step up to beef with Lyonnaise potatoes, sautéed spinach and mushrooms. Wood paneling, brass fixtures and VIP private wine lockers with engraved name plaques are all part of the show. Morton's wine list offers more than 200 choices, including mature Bordeaux and stylish California reds.

"Our customer probably doesn't eat much red meat at home," explains Vice President Klaus Fritsch, a European-trained chef. "But when he wants a steak, he comes to us."

Morton's caters to business customers who appreciate attentive service, plain, high-quality food and a quiet setting in which to close a deal. "Most people can't agree on what to eat - sushi, Mexican, Asian - but they will usually all agree on a steakhouse," Tammy Firestone says. "You're not taking chances at a steakhouse. It's the place to take visiting clients for a power lunch or dinner."

With gross sales for 1997 estimated at $134 million, Morton's is the fastest-growing fine-dining restaurant operation in the United States.

At the entrance of The Capital Grille, a high-end steakhouse chain best known for its Washington, D.C., location (a few blocks from the White House), patrons are greeted by slabs of beef, moldy with age, hung in glass-enclosed meat lockers. Here, beef and wine are king. Brass-plated lockers hold the wine collections of regular patrons who lease the lockers annually.

The opulent interiors of each of the seven Capital Grilles feature high ceilings, custom-made fixtures, hardwood paneling, and gleaming brass and glass. Hunters' trophies and oil paintings hang on the walls. Newspapers line the bar, and televisions tuned to C-SPAN and CNN hover above an electronic scroll reporting the latest stock market action. Private rooms and corner booths provide privacy for business dealing. The steak of choice for U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich - a regular at the Washington, D.C., restaurant - is the 24-ounce, dry-aged porterhouse.

The enthusiastic and knowledgeable service staff, who rarely miss a beat, sustain the air of luxury. But the accouterments are what keep patrons coming back: huge martinis, salmon and caviar, oysters on the half shell, crab and lobster cakes, Caesar salads, sinfully thick steaks, four-pound lobsters, double-cut lamb chops and grilled swordfish.

As always, spuds are a staple. Capital offers Sam's mashed potatoes, cottage fries and onion strings, Lyonnaise potatoes and one-pound baked potatoes. Wine is taken seriously here, too. The impressive list carries more than 400 international selections.

When Edward P. "Ned" Grace III opened the first upscale Capital Grille in a rundown section of Providence in 1989, just as the country was moving toward a recession, his friends thought he was mad. Nine years later, the first Capital Grille sits on prime real estate in a renovated railroad station and takes in more than $4 million in annual sales. Besides the Providence and Washington, D.C., anchor sites, the Capital Grille has locations in Boston and Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts; Troy, Michigan; Chicago and Miami, with plans for sites in Houston and San Francisco.

Grace put his faith in the stability of steak, and it has paid off. "Steak is not a trendy food. It's like a Brooks Brothers suit," says John Martin, the managing partner of the Washington, D.C., restaurant. "It has always been in style. People want simple, high-quality food and a comfortable atmosphere. That is what we sell."

Don Shula, former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, opened Shula's Steak House in Miami Lakes in 1989. It immediately became a hub for visiting teams, sports celebrities and power brokers.

Shula was still coaching when he went into the restaurant business with David and Sandy Younts of the Graham Cos., the owners of the Graham Angus Farm, a top Angus beef ranch in Florida. It took some persuasion to convince Shula to become a restaurateur. "Coaching consumed all my time. I just wasn't think-ing long-range," recalls Shula, the NFL's winningest coach. "But it has turned out to be a great success."

Shula's Steak House has ventured beyond its home turf with locations in Tampa, Florida, and Troy, Michigan; a Baltimore location is in the offing, while another Shula's just opened in Miami Beach in The Alexander Hotel. Shula plans to open between four and eight new restaurants within a year. His son, David, will oversee the expansion. "Obviously, NFL cities are a natural," David said.

It might as well be 1972 at Shula's Steak House. All the glory and grandeur that was the Miami Dolphins' 1972 Perfect Season is on display here, along with all the trappings that make for a great steakhouse: mammoth martinis, colossal shrimp, well-dressed Caesars, heavenly hash browns, creamy spinach, four-pound lobsters and obscenely thick steaks.

The football theme pervades each restaurant. Managers are called coaches, servers are called players and customers are referred to as fans. The entrée menu is printed on an NFL football signed by Shula; the wine list is bound in a pigskin-pebbled cover. Dark wood, brass fixtures, gilt-framed football photos, large tables, hefty glassware and sturdy steak knives set a decidedly masculine tone.

Shula's philosophy is to serve the biggest and the best - cholesterol be damned. The steaks are wet-aged, certified Angus beef. One of the featured menu items is a 48-ounce porterhouse fit for Larry Csonka, which, if eaten by a person at one seating, earns that voracious diner membership in the 48-ounce Club and a plaque at the front of the dining room. To date, there are more than 5,000 members.

Although their dining menus are nearly identical, surprisingly, each of the steakhouses visited here retains its own unique personality. Their owners have discovered a successful strategy in offering customers exactly what they want: quality and consistency - a reassuring reflection of a bygone era.
 

Tenderloin of Beef au Poivre
4 beef tenderloin steaks (filet mignon) each 1" thick (about 4 ounces each)
2 teaspoons cracked black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Cognac
1 tablespoon grainy Dijon mustard

Pat steaks dry with paper towels. Sprinkle salt over steaks. Press cracked pepper into both sides of steaks. Heat nonstick 12" skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add steaks and cook 8 to 10 minutes, turning once for medium-rare or until desired doneness. Remove steaks to plate; tent with foil. Add Cognac and mustard to skillet and heat to boiling, stirring frequently; boil 30 seconds. Add any juices exuded by meat. Taste for seasonings. Pour sauce onto 4 plates. Cut each filet into 1/4" slices and fan out on plate. Serves 4.

Macho Steak
This recipe is adapted from Mmmiami - Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere to be published by Henry Holt, Fall 1998.

2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and minced
3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 cup dry white or red wine
1/2 cup beef broth
1 tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 8-ounce, 1"-thick New York strip steaks
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Stir the jalapeños, garlic and cumin together in a small bowl and set aside. Set the wine, broth, tomato and a large platter nearby, too; leave the cut butter in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Pat the steaks dry with paper towels to ensure even browning; season with salt and pepper.

Put 2 steaks in the skillet and cook to the desired doneness, about 4 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer the steaks to a platter and cover loosely with foil to keep them warm. Cook the remaining steaks in the same way.

Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of drippings and reduce heat to low. Add the jalapeños, garlic and cumin; cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Increase heat to high, stir in the wine and bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits with a wooden spoon. Boil, stirring constantly, until liquid is reduced to 2 tablespoons.

Add the broth, return it to a boil and cook until reduced to 1/4 cup, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low, stir in tomato and simmer 1 minute. Pour in any juices that have accumulated around the steaks and simmer 1 minute more. Add the butter, 2 pieces at a time, swirling the pan until it melts.

Remove pan from heat. Stir in the cilantro, and add salt and pepper to taste. Transfer the steaks to dinner plates and spoon on the sauce. Serves 4.

Hash Brown Potatoes

2 pounds potatoes
4 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped onions
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Boil potatoes in skins until just barely done through. Cool, peel and chop coarsely. Heat oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add potatoes, sprinkle on onions, press down with spatula and fry over medium heat. Salt and pepper liberally.

Reduce heat to medium and cook slowly, pressing down several more times, until browned on the bottom, about 15 minutes. As the potatoes cook, shake the pan to make sure they are not sticking. Cut the potato cake down the middle and turn each side over. Cook the second side until golden brown and crusty. Serve at once. Serves 4.

Crispy Jerk-Fried Onion Rings
This recipe is adapted from Mmmiami - Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere to be published by Henry Holt, Fall 1998.

2 medium-large onions, peeled
Milk
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons jerk seasoning blend
Vegetable oil
Salt

Slice onions into thin rings. Place the rings in a bowl and add milk to cover them. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Drain the onions, spread them on a baking sheet and refrigerate while making the coating mixture.

Stir together the flour, cornstarch and jerk seasoning in a large bowl.

Heat 2 to 3 inches of oil to 360 degrees in a deep fryer or a suitable pan.

Line a baking sheet with several layers of paper towels, and set aside. Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Remove onions from refrigerator and set them near the stove with the bowl of coating mix nearby.

Using tongs, scoop up a small handful of onion rings, dip them in the coating mix, shake off the excess and release them gently into the hot oil.

Fry the rings, turning once, until golden brown, about 45 seconds. Transfer to the baking sheet to drain. Place in oven to keep warm. Return the oil to 360 degrees between batches. Serve warm. Serves 4.


Courtesy of The Wine News

 

Food Editor Carole Kotkin is a Miami-based cooking instructor and consultant who co-authored Mmmmiami - Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere. It provides clear, simple directions for 150 dishes, from the simple (good old Key Lime Pie) to the sublime (Coconut Mahi-Mahi with Passion Fruit Sauce). The wide array of flavors is especially wonderful and startling to those used to monocultural cooking; Miami cuisine is the product of many generations of interbreeding and hybrid vigor. Click on the link below for more details or to order.

Mmmmiami : Tempting Tropical Tastes for Cooks Everywhere