Chefs are pushing the boundaries of beef by hanging meat for ever-increasing periods. The resulting steaks are sensational – but a little goes a very long way
You know where you stand with steak, right? Twenty-eight-day aged beef is good. Get up to 35 or even 42 days of dry-ageing and, well, we’re talking ribeye royalty. All that steak needs is béarnaise sauce and a pile of hot, rustling frites, and there you have it: perfection.
Except that, for certain chefs, enough is never enough. What happens if you age beef for 60 or 90 days, they ask? How magical would that meat be? And then they do it. Which explains why we are now in the midst of an international steak-based arms race – one which the Dallas Chop House may have already won over in Texas, after it served a (and no, this is not a typo) 459-day aged steak last year. Eleven Madison Park in New York, meanwhile, has served a comparatively callow 140-day aged steak on its tasting menu (“stunt beef”, as one TripAdvisor wag had it).
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