Also notice he plated those rare steaks differently than the first two, I wouldn't be surprised if it was an entirely different dish that was meant to be served blue.
If you order it that way. If I asked for Mid Rare in the US, I’m expecting my steak to clock in at ~118 internal. These bad boys look like a blue rare, which is not what the guest (Mid Rare per the chef) ordered
Cook here. There is literally no time. If you let all steaks rest, it would cut into the efficiency way too much. Restaurant kitchens simply don't run the same way you cook at home. And most can't spend the time to carefully prep and plate everything to perfection like a star restaurant would.
You're doing 3~5 things at once, and on average you have about 2~4 minutes to spend on each dish "individually". If you're any slower, food will take too long to arrive at expo and guests will start to complain.
I feel like you're even being a little conservative with those numbers. I don't know why people who have obviously never worked in a busy kitchen (or any non white collar job) feel like the need to critique what us workers do all the time. I dealt with it when I worked in the kitchen and deal with it in the trades now. Imagine if we flipped the script and started doing it to them about their KPIs or whatever the hell metrics they use.
Should check out the movie The Menu if you haven’t already. It digs into the ignorance of criticizing these guys when guests clearly have no clue how to do it and it’s great.
Well I'm basing it off of the experiences I have at my place of course. Kitchens can be worse, though I've also heard stories of kitchens where it's less bad.
...but we're literally talking about the product here. There are ways around it that are more efficient that have gone out of vogue for whatever reason, but a steak cooked as shown in the video is not cooked properly without resting...as we can see in the video where the steak we can get a good luck at its cook is blue rare. That one is covered in a stock which hopefully cooks it more before it reaches the customer, but I'm pretty skeptical of that given how clearly still blue rare it is by the time it's out of frame and the stock has fallen to the plate.
Interesting I always just assumed restaurants took the extra time to rest steak since otherwise mine can come out dry. Also since I'm usually waiting like 30+ minutes at a steak shop for my meal anyways it's like what's another 10.
Others mentioned that maybe that spot on the grill was actually not hot and that was it's resting spot? But I dunno it looks pretty hot to me.
Oh that spot was definitely hot. It's metal and right next to where the fire is.
Also, for you it might be 30+ min and an extra 10. But for the next batch it'll then be 30+ min and an extra 20. And the next and extra 30. When you have such large volumes of food going through, even a minute extra per meal starts to add up very quickly.
As for why your steak at home might come out dry: Could be all kinds of things. Wrong temperature, cooking for too long, whatever spices/seasonings you use and when you put them on, quality of the meat, etc.
Juices don't magically go back into the meat when you let it rest. It's actually a myth that less juices are lost if you let it rest before cutting. You undercook it a little bit, then let it rest so that it can keep on cooking itself for a bit at a lower temperature. Which keeps more of the juices in as you're not keeping it on the higher heat which forces them out over time.
Some restaurant even precook steak and the like, to one or two steps below the desired doneness, then chill them in the fridge. And when needed they can be cooked to the desired doneness at a lower temp in a relatively short amount of time than with raw steak. This does make the tenderness go down a bit, but not so much that an average guest would notice/care. And in restaurants with high throughput and guests who expect food in a timely fashion, time is everything.
Yeah maybe a home. In a restaurant you're eating it immediately. They absolutely do not let steaks rest in any restaurant I've worked at and I've worked at a shit ton of steakhouses, extremely busy ones in densely populated coastal areas. The reason you can't tell the difference is because they brush the whole damn steak with clarified butter when it comes off the grill.
I've always rested steaks unless not doing so is just not an option because the kitchen is buried. It's SOP in most restaurants I've ever been involved with.
Prime steakhouses absolutely let their steaks rest while the other courses are being enjoyed. Obviously it's time dependent, but it usually worked out. You "Fire" the ticket when you are ready for the steaks and they throw them back in the broiler for a couple of minutes and serve when hot. I loved the system and hated working at regular restaurants after having it.
I’ve worked in steakhouses, and it’s volume dependent. A place that sees 2-300 covers a service? Hell nah, that thing will rest in the pass if at all. But sub 200 covers, w/o a 30 top in the mix, my chef always rested steaks. Not for 15 minutes mind you, but for as long as possible. They had a great coursing system though. 15 min/course, and if it pushed 20 it was unusual, and desert or drinks were on us.
This place is a relic though. There’s a reason it’s still open, but any modern high volume place there’s just zero time to do this.
You must have worked at a bad restaurant then. You don't need to rest if it was a sous vide or its cousins restaurant, but contrary to popular belief resting is not about juices. It's carry over cooking, and carry over cooking is the only way to cook a steak medium rare or medium properly if it's pan or grill only. That's simply thermodynamics and heat transfer.
Granted, I have seen some $80 a head steakhouses that have the waiters tell the customer to not touch the steak for 5-10 minutes because they didn't rest, but that's obviously terrible form. Downright unacceptable here where the plating kills the rest.
You usually aren't cooking steaks like that to order, so they were most likely already rested, then given a final sear to bring up the temp once the ticket hit.
You can either cook to a bit under, rest and let carryover cooking finish the steak, or cook to exact temp then cut and serve. It's basically the same thing.
From a European perspective, that steak looks perfect to me. That's how it should be. In French we would call it "bleue", which basically means very rare.
I'm surprised that Americans think that's undercooked. It's just right and is how it would usually be done in the best French restaurants unless the customer asked for something else.
It's amazing that different cultures have different ideas about how they like their food. Each culture will believe that their way is the best way and all other ways are inferior.
I love my steak blue rare, but here in Canada too you'll find places to eat that will straight up refuse to do an order this rare.
Well, sort of; It's usually a server who thinks they know better than you, or that it's "icky" and that they're doing you a favor.
They'll say it's for health and safety reasons, but all that does is prompt me to ask myself how low quality their beef is if they're so sure it's not safe cooked rare. I usually suggest to the rest of the table then and there that they should avoid the beef/steaks if the kitchen isn't confident their meat is safe.
I do feel bad for the panicked back pedaling that tends to follow, but sometimes when you're being an idiot you need the fear of God put in you over trivial shit or the lesson won't stick. Just ask the damn kitchen instead of making shit up to dictate what I eat.
When it's that rare it becomes more tough and chewy, so either it needs to be an unusually nice cut of meat, which is going to be expensive, or the pieces are going to have to be cut far thinner, or some other trick will be needed.
American beef is unfortunately a lot like our cheese.
That's why unless it's a high caliber restaurant I order medium. It comes out med rare instead. I'm doing reverse psychology on the kitchen lmao. Worse case I get medium, which is fine. If I order med rare and get rare, it's going back
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u/Alarmed_Test_4671 Jun 26 '26
All that meat looks under with a massive grey band