Meet the new American Steak House

[Jenise]

An Eater article which puts into words something I've been noticing but hadn't really understood:


Last year, I moderated a panel about the state of Filipino cuisine in the United States today, featuring a few Filipino chefs from around the country. These chefs ran very different restaurants: a rotisserie-chicken-focused wine bar, a tasting-menu-oriented fine dining restaurant, and an Asian American steakhouse. I left that conversation thinking about something chef Tara Monsod of the San Diego steakhouse Animae had said: that the format of the steakhouse has allowed her to introduce diners to flavors they might not have otherwise encountered. Case in point was her pork tomahawk tocino, a caveman-esque cut of meat that glistens with a sweet glaze in the style of the Filipino breakfast dish. Huh, I thought, can the steakhouse be a kind of Trojan horse? I put a pin in that idea.

I started seeing new examples of this all over. Not long after that conference, chef Kwame Onwuachi announced his newest project, Maroon, a Caribbean steakhouse in Las Vegas. I saw the steak tacos transformed into a tableside cart experience at Cuerno, a “Mexican steakhouse” that opened in New York City last summer. I tracked the rise of high-end Korean establishments in NYC like Cote and Gui, which billed themselves as “steakhouses” and not Korean barbecue restaurants. (As I’d later learn in a call with Cote owner Simon Kim, this was an intentional framing.) Philadelphia got Manong, an Outback-inspired Filipino steakhouse. And all of this was happening as the classic all-American steakhouse also surged.

That the steakhouse has ascended alongside the current political conservatism in the United States is not a coincidence, but rather a byproduct. It’s the right, of course, that prides itself as the party of meat-driven masculinity, invoking the alt-right term “soy boys” to deride those across the aisle. With the current administration’s recent affirmation of meat, the steakhouse revival is inseparable from these politics. Whether one likes them or not, the classic American steakhouse — with its predictable menu, impervious to change — asserts a particular nostalgia. The steakhouse is the status quo; it preserves a culture that’s comfortable to those in power.

In this way, though, I started to see the steakhouse as a space of dueling sensibilities: The steakhouse can protect a staid sense of Americana, but the steakhouse can also subvert it, advocating for a more expansive mindset. In the new American steakhouse, the borders between cuisines are open and cultures have more to learn from each other. Read my full story about the new American steakhouse here.

Interesting reflection. And it makes perfect sense to me: The tried-and-true place is comfortable but also a little boring. So, diners who want to "shake things up a little" will end up with gochujang glaze or a jollof rice side or satay dipping sauce... and thereby meet the cultures they say they abhor.

Interesting information. I don't eat out much anymore, but I have noticed the large number of different ethnic restaurants we are getting in Redding. Most have great reviews, but steak has not been mentioned. We are a large western way of life community, lots of cowboys, and more BBQ places than I can count. There is always a tri-tip BBQ with beans and all the fixings going on somewhere, and they are delicious.
When I go into our local meat and seafood shop, they have all sorts of prepared types of steaks, also in grocery stores, as well. I never buy them as I like doing all that myself.
Gene and I are from Eureka, CA, which sits right on Humboldt Bay on the coast, and steak houses were a big thing in that small town of about 15,000 people. When we moved to Redding, that was not the case.

Just a note which may be of interest, or NOT. We have a lot of people moving here from the San Francisco area, Sacramento, etc., and they complain that their favorite fast-food place is not here. The locals are complaining about too many franchise chicken places, and indeed, there are many.

Cote is the most famous/obvious example in NYC, but certainly there are a lot of new variations on steakhouses. Often with an ethnic twist - besides a bunch of Korean there are Argentine (like Balvanera), Brazilian chains, and even English (Hawksmoor).
But I think the writer is striving a bit too hard to be a "deep thinker" and social commentator.

But those are not new in any way, Dale. English prime rib is a classic; Churrascaria have been in NYC, anyway, for decades; as have those weird spinning contraptions the Argentines use. I think the author is saying that restaurateurs are reaching for ever-more exotic preps, and how that contrasts with steady-eddy cuisines like steakhouse.

[Jenise]

I read it differently than you, Jeff. It's not that the restaurauteurs are reaching for more exotic preps, it's more the other way around. They are increasingly of non-white ethnicity and are marrying steakhouse culture with their own food culture. America's increasing multi-ethnicity is being continuously flaunted on the plethora of TV cooking contests now available, so that even people in food deserts like Bellingham, WA and Redding, CA who lack local exotic-ness can see and salivate over Thai, Korean, Chinese, Mexican or ____ elevated twists on the classic steak dinner.

These ethnic variations are our new normal. One of the best steak places in Seattle, or so I've heard, is a place called El Gaucho.

Jenise, while Redding may not be as sophisticated as you are used to, I hardly consider it a food desert. We are blessed with many ethnic food places and more coming in all the time. I would like to see more of the healthy food places and less fast food, as I have never been a fast food fan. Many here are, and that is ok. We also have a few ethnic grocery stores, which seem very well stocked, and I have always found that special ingredient that I had to have and used only a few times.

Jeff, my point (and I think the author's and Jenise's ) is not that Argentine or Korean beef, English prime rib, or churrascaria are new (certainly not to NY). It's that the places bill themselves as steakhouses (and going for that vibe).

Jenise, while Redding may not be as sophisticated as you are used to, I hardly consider it a food desert. We are blessed with many ethnic food places and more coming in all the time. I would like to see more of the healthy food places and less fast food, as I have never been a fast food fan. Many here are, and that is ok. We also have a few ethnic grocery stores, which seem very well stocked, and I have always found that special ingredient that I had to have and used only a few times.

Karen,
It's a while since I've spent any time in Redding and its environs (I used to visit friends in Cottonwood annually to go camping in Lassen) so it's good to hear your take on the food scene there. And, yeah, I've spent time in Eureka, too, and know wherefrom you speak.

[Jenise]

Jenise, while Redding may not be as sophisticated as you are used to, I hardly consider it a food desert. We are blessed with many ethnic food places and more coming in all the time. I would like to see more of the healthy food places and less fast food, as I have never been a fast food fan. Many here are, and that is ok. We also have a few ethnic grocery stores, which seem very well stocked, and I have always found that special ingredient that I had to have and used only a few times.

Karen, did you ignore the fact that I called my own town a food desert, too? It is. We have some ethnic food here, sure, but no one's going to open a Korean Steakhouse here in my lifetime and nor is that going to happen in Redding. Us compared to Seattle is like Redding compared to San Francisco and it has nothing to do with groceries. It's about what the audience of diners at the $40-a-plate-and-up level are willing to spend their money on. Remember, this thread is about steakhouses.

But I think the writer is striving a bit too hard to be a "deep thinker" and social commentator.

Maybe. But I do think culture reflects the broader political/economic environment. We see this with the types of films that get made, fashion trends, and food trends as well. Certainly lots of political content behind the paleo/fitness intersection, just as there was with the fermentation/back to nature/DIY intersection for a different subset. But because humans are complicated, even the xenophobic Meat Lovers want some flavor on their food!

I thought that the "Trojan Horse" comment was interesting. Call it a steakhouse to attract more conservative (in the sense of taste rather than politics) diners and then see if you can convince them to go with a bit of an ethnic twist on the standard slab of meat. I suppose that it could also be that these restaurants are quite expensive, and the term "steakhouse" signals that more effectively than "Caribbean barbecue joint". It will be interesting to see how these places do. I could see your typical conservative steakhouse person sniffing at these as fake steakhouses and refusing to have anything to do with them. And I can see your typically more adventurous eater sniffing at them as over-priced inauthentic versions of ethnic eateries. Then again, in places like Las Vegas or New York City, maybe it's only the buzz that matters.

It will be interesting to see how these places do. I could see your typical conservative steakhouse person sniffing at these as fake steakhouses and refusing to have anything to do with them. And I can see your typically more adventurous eater sniffing at them as over-priced inauthentic versions of ethnic eateries. Then again, in places like Las Vegas or New York City, maybe it's only the buzz that matters.

I think like every cultural development, some examples are better than others. There's clearly a market for high-quality interesting food and lots of examples of that continue to prosper.

[Jenise]

Exactly Rahsaan.

Also, Mike, perhaps we should stop thinking of caucasians as the target customer? Think back to many informative posts by Jay Labrador and Noel Ermitano, where huge grilled steaks worthy of any American steakhouse figured heavily in many a tasting note photos from the Philippines. Big steaks are popular and an emblem of success. The difference between there and here is that Filipinos provided other sides more common to their culture. That's all the steakhouses we're talking about here are doing: catering to their culture. And the rest of us are welcome to enjoy it, too.

Yeah, good points there, Rahsaan and Jenise. And for what it's worth, I'd certainly rather go to a steakhouse that went beyond just the absurdly priced steaks with absurdly priced side dishes and absurdly priced wine. At least these others would give you options beyond just plain old steak (as good as those cuts of meat are).

And you never know what is going to become a classic.

Until Rossini became famous, nobody ever had tournedos Rossini, right? It was a Johnny-come-lately prep, if ever there was one!

Don't get me started on what that fellow Wellington did with duxelles!

[Jenise]

Exactly Rahsaan.

Also, Mike, perhaps we should stop thinking of caucasians as the target customer? Think back to many drool-worthy posts by Jay Labrador and Noel Ermitano, where huge grilled steaks worthy of any American steakhouse figured heavily in many a tasting note photos from the Philippines. Big steaks are popular and an emblem of success. The difference between there and here is that Filipinos provided other sides more common to their culture. That's all the steakhouses we're talking about here are doing: catering to their cultures. And the rest of us are welcome to enjoy them, too.