Why are the steaks better at a restaurant than at home?

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For those of us who enjoy a nicely seared slab of red meat now and then, steak is often considered the highest form of carnivore candy. But have you ever noticed a discernible difference between the taste of a steak cooked at home and the highly flavorful steak you receive when you dine out at a restaurant? Before you get all self-conscious and defensive about your cooking skills, let's get one thing straight: We're not saying it's impossible to pull off cooking a great steak at home.

 

With the right techniques, you can plate up a steak in your own kitchen that you can be proud of. That said, the fact remains that restaurants tend to have a few tricks up their sleeves to produce intensely flavorful steaks that often surpass our own efforts. Some of you might feel like no matter what recipe or method you try, you never seem to perfectly recreate the stratospheric levels of flavor, texture, and tastiness that you encounter when you eat out at a steakhouse. As it turns out, there are a few good reasons for that - some of which may surprise you.

 

Here's why steaks always taste better at restaurants:

• Compound butter is the key ... restaurants often use compound butter to enhance the taste of everything from chicken and waffles to cuts of steak. In fact, the reason why everything at restaurants tastes better generally comes down to one thing ... copious amounts of butter.

• Dry-Aging Adds Major Flavor ... so, if you're wondering why that ribeye at your favorite steakhouse is packed with outrageous flavor, it's probably because it was professionally dry-aged in its own special climate-controlled fridge for a while. And since most of us don't have the space or equipment to safely dry large slabs of raw beef at home for long periods of time, restaurants have the upper hand here once again.

• Direct Access to Suppliers Gives Restaurants an Advantage ... having direct access to some of the highest-quality cuts of beef in bulk makes it much easier for restaurants to pump out consistently great steaks from their kitchens. So, when you go out to eat at a steakhouse, you're not just visiting a restaurant - you're essentially being handed the keys to some special cuts of meat that might be difficult to track down at the places that you normally shop.

• The Sous Vide Method Is A Secret Weapon ... sous vide makes it possible for restaurants to keep partially-cooked steaks warm by the stove, ready to be finished on the grill as orders come in — all while maintaining tenderness and the ideal temperature. So, if you go out for a steak and take that first juicy bite and notice its perfect color, it might be due to the sous vide method being used in the kitchen.

• Restaurants Use High-Quality Pans ... restaurants know that carbon steel pans are a great vessel to achieve that crust - which makes them perfect for achieving that top-notch texture we're all craving when we go out for steak at a restaurant. They're also somewhat nonstick and they're lighter than cast iron pans. At the end of the day, a chef is only as good as the pan in hand, and you better believe that restaurants make sure the kitchen has some nice ones ready to go.

• Butchers Give a Helping Hand ... that's exactly the situation that some of the nicer steakhouses are in, as it's common for restaurants to hire butchers to utilize their unique skill set for the sake of your steak. While many steakhouses do simply order pre-portioned meat, high-end places have on-site butchers who cut every steak by hand to the restaurants' exact specifications.

• They Cook with Intense Heat ... since these special broilers can tend to run between $15,000 - $25,000, it's safe to assume that most home cooks don't have these types of commercial broilers available to them in their own kitchens. By having access to high-quality, professional equipment like special broilers that can produce super intense heat, restaurants are able to cook steaks in a consistently hot atmosphere that most home kitchens can't compete with.

• They Bring Steaks to Room Temperature and Allow Them to Rest ... the resting period is particularly important; some even consider it one of the most crucial parts of the cooking process. The reason this is important is that the juices inside of the steak need a chance to reabsorb into the muscle fibers and settle back down throughout the meat. Usually, the resting period should be anywhere between five and 20 minutes, with some wiggle room depending on factors like how long the steak was cooked for and how thick the cut is. Good restaurants understand the importance of this step and that's part of the reason their steaks are so tender.