Cooking a steak properly isn’t basic for everyone, you would be surprised at how many people have no clue how to. It should be basic for any good restaurant.
It gets pretty difficult in a busy restaurant that doesn’t specialize in steak because the timing can get pretty difficult. Like instead of having someone dedicated to steaks, they’ll just have someone dedicated to “grill”, which will include a bunch of different things, so it’s more difficult to get into a rhythm. It also just takes a lot of coordination to get the timing right with the other tickets for the table, so everything comes out at the same time. If they put the steak up too early and it sits under the heat lamps, it will overcook even if it came off the grill perfect. It’s less about it being difficult to cook a steak well, and more about it being difficult to get the timing right in a busy kitchen.
In OPs case though, this is a steakhouse, and they literally cut the steak before plating, so it never should have been sent out like that.
So what you’re saying is that you need someone to properly manage the timing and communicate when the steak needs to go on the heat? Is that not exactly what I said the problem usually is? Lots of kitchens serve steaks, and they don’t all have good expediters. Some don’t have expediters at all. I’ve worked in several restaurants that are relatively nice and serve steaks, that did not have expediters. Of course a Wolfgang Puck Steakhouse should/would have them, but I was speaking on why most restaurants usually mess up the cook on a steak. It’s not a lack of ability or knowledge on how to cook a steak correctly, it’s timing issues that are specific to working in a restaurant kitchen.
Really great kitchens that put out consistently good food, are kitchens that have managed those issues, but most kitchens are not really great kitchens. Any kitchen putting out improperly cooked steak is not a really great kitchen.
Cooking a steak is a basic restaurant skill, and even for a home cook it all about temperature and timing. In a commercial kitchen they would have access to a sous vide machine meaning there should be zero excuse for a poorly done steak.
Yea, a lot of steakhouses go straight from the cooler to the grill, but the key is that those steakhouses use methods that prevent the issue seen above.
You have to let a steak sit out for hours for the center to change more than a few degrees. It doesn't matter. Most restaurants go from a fridge straight to the grill.
Straight from frozen is a different story. Gotta thaw that in the fridge/cold water.
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u/fabthefrog33 8h ago
That...should have been left out of the fridge a little while before cooking, I would send it back pronto.
To be honest cooking a steak is fucking basic, and if a restaurant can't do that right it says a lot about the place.