Rule No. 1 at Mastro’s: Order your steak slightly under your preferred cooking temperature, as one server advised, because the steaks are borne from the kitchen on plates heated to 400 degrees, meaning they continue to cook on their journey to the table. Rule No. 2: Don’t even think about touching the plate. Mastro’s … Read more
As scenesters flock to Swift & Sons and guidebook-toting tourists head to Gibsons, this 30-year-old tri-level charmer remains the real deal. The rest of the city’s old guard seem to have thrown in the towel on service and quality, but the servers and the food here sparkle. The crisp Caesar and gooey truffle mac and … Read more
Small plates at a steakhouse may sound like heresy, but Boka Restaurant Group’s audacious venture with chef-owner Giuseppe Tentori delivers a novel kind of satisfaction. Instead of a meat bacchanal, the Carnivore (above)—the centerpiece of GT Prime’s menu—is a tasting of petite four- or eight-ounce cuts of beef tenderloin, strip loin, venison loin, and American … Read more
Take your standard stuffy downtown steakhouse and put a flannel shirt on it, and you’ve got Boeufhaus. This brick-walled, charmingly indie Humboldt Park storefront, with a clientele that’s more tattooed than tie-wearing, boasts a kitchen that can hang with the heavy hitters: Steaks (like the 35-day dry aged rib eye, above) are aged to a … Read more
Pass through the entryway to a vantage point that overlooks a sea of white-linen-topped tables, booths, and banquettes, all of it anchored by a gleaming horseshoe-shaped bar. Steak 48 looks so glamorous you half expect to see Lauren Bacall leaning in to ask Bogie for a light. That’s not happening, but a pretty dramatic evening … Read more
It’s not an overstatement to describe Bavette’s 22-ounce bone-in rib eye (pictured on this issue’s cover)—dry-aged for 42 days, succulent fat along the bone melting into perfectly marbleized prime beef under a light char—as heroic. It coalesces into something aggressive and wonderful, hinting at blue cheese funkiness. And in the welcoming speakeasy environs, all mirrors … Read more
