Year of the Cow

Boston has seen this sort of culinary pileup before, from burgers to brasseries to cupcakes. But the steak boom represents a loss of diversity that has many feeling let down, even embarrassed. On the foodie website Chowhound, a thread titled “Too Many Steak Houses in Boston” begins with a modest suggestion: “I propose the City of Boston start limiting the number of licenses they give to chain steak houses.”

The chagrin stems from what steakhouses signify, which is to say, excess: huge slabs of meat, big potatoes, giant wedges of cheesecake. Meanwhile, the popular discourse on food-—in the pages of the New York Times dining section, in Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, at the local meetings of the Slow Food organization—is focused on organics and sustainability, on zero trans fat and food miles. And our collective infatuation with red meat isn’t just making us seem culturally out of it. We look like bad citizens, too.

Most cattle bound for the slaughterhouse are fed a diet heavy in corn, which requires more water and fertilizer than other crops. Fertilizers, in turn, are made from fossil fuels. Then there’s the fact that cows are wired to eat grass, not corn, which can irritate their digestive tracts and lead to large-scale antibiotic dosing, not to mention excessive methane passing into the atmosphere, and…it gets messy. “It’s highly unsustainable,” says Peter Hoffman, chef-owner of Savoy in New York and board member of the Boston-based Chefs Collaborative, a nonprofit that promotes eco-sensitive eating. While restaurants like the Met Club, Boston Public, KO Prime, and Mooo make a point of offering more environmentally friendly grass-fed beef as an option, there’s still a vast amount of corn-fed beef moving through this city every day. Spikes in the price of corn, brought about by the demand for ethanol, haven’t prompted the chains to embrace grass-fed beef, and aren’t likely to any time soon: Since people expect to splurge for a steak, restaurants can share some of the financial burden with customers who won’t be scared off by moderately higher checks. Jay Murray of Grill 23 estimates a 14-ounce corn-fed New York sirloin costs $8 more than it did just a year ago; to soften the blow, he’s been able to raise the menu price by $5, to $44.

At the height of the celebrity-chef craze, restaurants won praise when they were dubbed visionary and individualistic. The steakhouse uprising is built on the contention that vision and individuality are not at all what local diners want. To critics it looks like an overreaction at best, a play for easy money at worst. “There may be some truth to the argument that people got tired of reading menus they didn’t understand,” says Hoffman. “But I don’t think chefs had to embrace steak in response to that.” Tony Maws, chef-owner of Cambridge’s Craigie Street Bistrot, agrees, saying, “We often use the excuse ‘Boston doesn’t get it.’ But actually, they do, provided you know how to present something and have a staff that can explain and offer alternatives. There are a lot of people who are well traveled and not foreign to the idea of eating interesting food.”

He’s right, of course. But that doesn’t change the fact that for now, steakhouses rule. Much as local dining elites might bemoan this reality, it’s going to take a major cultural shift to turn Bostonians away from the cow. “People just love it,” says Oringer, who boasts that KO Prime has done “very well” since opening in May. “You can’t deny it. Especially in this town.”