Those sirloins that New Yorkers were gorging themselves on a century ago? Most of them rolled into town by way of Chicago, where livestock arrived from the Midwest hinterlands (and the city's own stockyards, which closed in the 1970s) and, after processing in the infamous slaughterhouses, continued on by rail to the East Coast. But the business of beef does have undeniable civic resonance here. I don't say this to dredge up regressive tropes about the Windy City being a "meat and potatoes town." It's the third largest city in the United States, with a metro-area population of 9.5 million - of course its culinary character can't be reduced to a single class of restaurant. Great steakhouses flourish in every corner of the nation, but Chicago just happens to have more of the wonderful ones right now. (And so do nineties-esque, wasabi-everything fusion conceits.) One or another may differentiate itself with the sumptuousness of its decor, or the depth of its wine cellar, or the pedigreed source of the beef it serves - steakhouses are all haute chameleons, and we never tire of marveling at their adaptive colorings. European and South American flavors weave into the basic menu template seamlessly. They succeed as eccentric independents like Bern's in Tampa, as high-end chains, and as vanity projects for celebrity chefs. Steakhouses can adapt to the guises of elegant supper clubs, corporate boardrooms, and sleek dens of vice. The format rolls with the trends and the times. Its straightforward blueprint makes it the ideal foil for constant reinvention - a perfect trait for an archetypical style of American dining. By late in the century, now-institutions like Manhattan treasure Keen's (which opened in 1885) and Peter Luger in Brooklyn (1887) offered slightly more genial surroundings, eventually adding menu items that became permanent sidekicks to porterhouses and mutton chops: shrimp cocktail, fried or baked potatoes, creamed spinach.Īs the steakhouse genus spread across the country and prevailed through the decades, it managed to stay relevant through a state of perpetual metamorphosis. Revelry has been part of the genre ever since it originated in New York in the mid-1800s, at restaurants known as "beefsteaks" where men sat in rowdy halls consuming as much red meat and beer as they could hold. All in on the expense, all in on the calories, all in on the celebration. And among the newcomers are three - including Boeufhaus - that, in their unique balance of nostalgia and modernity and individuality, made me walk out the door thinking I'd just experienced the next triumphant evolutions of the American steakhouse.Īt once innately codified and infinitely adaptable, a posh steakhouse is where we go on those occasions when we proclaim: Fuck it, we're going all in. Steakhouses aren't hard to suss out in this city: Nearly 50 compete for conventioneer dollars in the Downtown area alone, and at least a dozen new ones have opened citywide in the last two years. I had been in Chicago for nearly a week by the time I ate there, a week spent pounding down red meat and refined carbs at top-tier chophouses night after night. Steakhouses are all haute chameleons, and we never tire of marveling at their adaptive colorings. Chef-owners Brian Ahern and Jamie Finnegan nail the quintessential chophouse meal: beef tartare and chilled seafood to begin, baller steaks and hedonistic sides, comforting excesses for dessert. Like the trappings, the cuisine at Boeufhaus defies steakhouse convention. Lined with russet-colored brick on one side and a bar built of mixed woods on the other, the room at Boeufhaus seats only 34. Instead, the space brought to mind a tiny pub on a European side street. None of the usual intimations of money and power whirling through the air like cigar smoke. No plush, tufted banquettes or sedan-size booths. No white tablecloths or servers in black bowties. The scene around us, though, didn't square with classical notions of cow palace luxury. We had fallen deep into the steakhouse pleasure zone. Between meaty bites, we snatched up fries cooked in beef tallow and shook our heads helplessly at the narcotic richness of a cauliflower gratin. Devouring it fulfilled every desire a diner could have for this cut of beef and this length of aging - tang, funk, tender-tautness, fatty profundity - and my table of three fell into a focused, contented silence. The slices toppled neatly over one another like fallen dominoes, the last beefy brick leaning against the bone from which the meat had been cleaved. The ribeye at Boeufhaus in Chicago, dry-aged for 55 days and weighing in at 22 ounces, arrived carved into thick tiles with crimson centers.
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