Dallas Steakhouses Were Always Going to End Up Serving $1,000 Gold-Wrapped Slabs of Meat – Texas Monthly

Dallas spawned a generation of steak dynasties. Several national chains developed in Dallas: Bob’s Steak & Chop House ’93, III Forks ’98. Big D is also home to industry legends like John Tesars Knife and Al Biernat’s old money, each with sister locations in the Metroplex. Dallas has been home to the hugely successful Pappas Bros. Steakhouse for 23 years. The first location of the Fogo de Chão chain outside of Brazil is located in Addison in the north. There’s also the inimitable Nick & Sam’s in flashy Uptown, where the chances of seeing a cowboy or maverick are high any night of the week, and the chances of seeing aspiring models are even better.

Festive by nature, these prime beef suppliers have never been a place for a cheap meal. Texas Monthly Editor-in-Chief Patricia Sharpe named these esteemed institutions the Übersteakhouses in her 1997 guide “The elite meat to eat” in which she writes that in the mid-1990s, after the success of the Outback Steakhouse and with the growing “lust for beef”, “sales in upscale beef palaces shot up”. Americans began searching for steak dinners at home and in restaurants. “The only thing that isn’t a time warp is the check: $ 30 to $ 60 per person,” Sharpe wrote.

Today, only a few of the above-mentioned over-steakhouses have a steak with side dishes for less than $ 60 – perhaps during lunch or for an 8-ounce fillet or with Fogo de Chão’s “churrasco experience” for 53 $ 95 with limitless cuts and salad bar. Sixty dollars is now a starting point. There are few groupons or children’s meal-free nights; Instead, this is a Saturnian experience of prosperity, served with pieces of grilled red meat in a glittering dining room. Dallas Steakhouse isn’t just a place to eat, it’s a place to see in person and now online. In addition to celebratory birthday and anniversary dinners, those who seemingly want to collect money – or pretend to be for one night – take part in the excessive price payment ceremony. Eating is a sport, and the recently opened Nusr-Et, with its gold foil-wrapped tomahawk steak worth $ 1,100, is the new medal of honor.

To be fair, the steak isn’t always that expensive. Without the edible (and tasteless) gold, it’s a relative steal at $ 275. If you’re lucky, chef Nusret Gökçe, better known as Salt Bae, is in town for around cut open the steak with his scimitar blade and season it with salt from an offered bowl, which he sprinkles over his shiny, often recalled forearm. After expanding from the Middle East to Miami and Las Vegas, the seedy butcher’s outpost in Dallas opened in March. The gold-wrapped steak isn’t about taste, however; It’s about the gram. (A company spokesman, unwilling to comment on the chain’s high prices, describes the Nurs-Et dishes as works of art.) Instagram and Twitter made Salt Bae famous, and guests who buy his stunt are no doubt posting for their own share of the likes.

Among those willing to spend the money is Kelly Bryant, a Dallas production company owner who says she goes to Nick & Sam’s regularly and enjoys traveling to eat in new places. She booked a reservation to visit Nusr-Et the second week after seeing one TikTok video of the salt phenomenon.

“[Salt Bae] has this energy and presence, ”she says. “You can’t help but notice him. He walks across the room and you can’t help but look. ”She ordered the gold-coated cheeseburger for $ 300 since she was told it would bring Salt Bae to the table. After he silently cut it, he half held a burger in front of the camera behind her shoulder and slowly and dramatically said a word: “juicy”. “We died laughing,” she says. “The whole thing is staged, including the drinks and cocktails – it’s about show and presentation.”

Bryant recalls that the total bill for the three in her group was about $ 1,800, but it was worth it for her because she got to see Salt Bae, it was fun, and life is experience. “A good meal is worth the investment,” she says. “I understand the value of a dollar and the hard work that goes into it, and this is the area I invest in to enjoy life.”

The Nusr-Et location in Dallas shows a dry-aged meat cabinet.Courtesy of Nusr-Et

Brian Taylor, a professional bodybuilder from Watauga, visited Nusr-Et two months after it opened in Dallas, but Salt Bae was in Beverly Hills at the time when it opened. Taylor and his wife spent nearly $ 900 on a burger, a couple of lamb chops, two side dishes, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of water (not even the water is free). He thinks the evening was a success because there was a “nice atmosphere”, his wife enjoyed it and the food was even better thanks to the service and presentation. “I think it’s worth it if you’re one of those who can afford to spend a few hundred and don’t miss out,” he says.

Gökçe may have driven steakhouse prices in Dallas to the impossible, but the cost of a top-class steak in town was already unlikely. Before the golden tomahawk was made, Nick & Sam published founding chef and co-owner Samir Dhurandharand the dirk 2017 in honor of his regular customer and friend Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki. The steak is a 41-ounce bone-in prime fillet that retails for $ 265 today. That same year, Georgie by Curtis Stone, a steakhouse in Highland Park Named as one of the nicest new restaurants in America, scandalized Food media and Guests when it opened with a 42-ounce bone-in ribeye valued at $ 390 from Australian producer Blackmore Wagyu. (The farm’s program raises calves with breast milk in a pasture for six months before meeting their fate as a breeder or later feed.)

Eddie Sullivan, co-owner of Riscky’s Steakhouse, which has been stationed in the Fort Worth Stockyards since the 1920s, says he never plans to spend thousands on a steak. “I don’t see how a normal person or a family of four can afford that,” he says. “But of course you have your dirks out there.” He kept his steaks and side dishes under $ 50 because, as he sees it, “volume cures all ills”.

Georgie co-owner Stephan Courseau asks and answers the most relevant question about the tomahawk wrapped in gold leaf: “Does the gold taste better? I can’t answer that, ”he says. “[At Georgie], we connect more with farmers than with gold miners. ”(Gökçe and the managers of Nusr-Et did not respond to requests for comments.)

Nick & Sam’s Chef Dhurandhar came from New York 22 years ago to run the Gatsbyesque Steakhouse; Glamor, glamor and city prices are no stranger to him. However, he says of Nusr-Et: “I don’t understand. I’ve been twice. The food is good, but overpriced. And I’m an expensive restaurant – but I don’t think I’m killing people. ”Nick & Sam’s offers a wide variety of top-notch Allen Brothers steaks. It is also one of the few restaurants in the nation offers certified Kobe beef. “Our steaks are not cheap,” says Dhurandhar, “but if you start with a good cut, there is very little to do afterwards.”

As with Nusr-Et, people come to Nick & Sam’s for more than just the top steaks. The well-heeled and deep pockets are there for the roaring twenties experience with free caviar; Cocktails and desserts served in mysterious, attention-grabbing clouds of dry ice; and Willy Wonka – like candy floss with LED flashing lights. “People go out to eat to have fun with family and friends,” says Dhurandhar. He found that when you offer a product that guests like, “people are willing to spend the money.”

The cuts at Nick & Sam’s and Georgie by Curtis Stone may seem like stunt steaks at first glance, but for many who want high quality beef in a sophisticated setting, these menus offer more budget-friendly options that don’t get hashtags and tiktoked repeatedly . If there was ever a real stunt steak in Texas before Salt Bae arrived, it would be the 72-ounce offering at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, which opened in Amarillo on Route 66 in 1960. The original goal of the restaurant was to bring cowboys off the stockyards with steaks, grills, nickel beers, and check cashing. Co-owner Bobby Lee says the 72-ounce steak challenge that is now Live stream on YouTube started with his father wanting to benefit from the customers who bragged about how much meat they could eat. Five dollar bets turned into the 72 ounce challenge – eat it all with a baked potato and salad in under an hour and it’s free. Despite the tricky challenge, Lee still relies on the steaks. “Call us the tourist trap, call us what you want, but we kept the quality. Otherwise we would have died long ago. “

The Big Texan now feeds around 500,000 people annually, with notable guests including actor Billy Bob Thornton, various Bushes, Jimmy Carter, and Elvis Presley – not to mention record-breaking eater Molly Schuyler, the three 72-ounce. ate steaks, three baked potatoes, three rolls, three salads, and three shrimp cocktails in twenty minutes. And that, my friends, is a steak stunt.

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