12 Best Steakhouses in America Right Now

Houston’s B&B is a butcher shop first and a restaurant second.

In fact, B&B has a 12-course meat tasting and wine pairing called “Meet Our Meat” that is exclusive to the butcher shop.

This globe-spanning menu includes multiple preparations of rare, Japanese A5 kobe—such as side vegetables sautéed in kobe fat—and Texas Wagyu, plus offbeat items like smoked lamb bacon and palate cleansers like Meyer lemon sorbetto.

Photo: Courtesy of Barclay Prime

Elevating the cheeseburger to gourmet status is so last decade.

At Barclay Prime in Philadelphia, restaurateur Stephen Starr has gussied up the humble Philly cheesesteak into a $120 affair.

For this lavish sandwich, the chophouse fresh-bakes a sesame roll and stuffs it with tender, A5 Wagyu ribeye, foie gras mousse, onions and faux Cheez Whiz made with truffles. It comes with half a bottle of champagne.

Photo: Courtesy of Bateau

Chef Renee Erickson, the James Beard Award-winning driving force behind Seattle’s Bateau, wasn’t satisfied buying her livestock from reputable ranchers.

So she bought an entire ranch. Erickson and her business partners own land on nearby Whidbey Island, where they raise beef, poultry and lamb and grow vegetables, fruits and nuts for their restaurant. (They also keep 80+ heads of cattle on a ranch in Moses Lake.)

At Bateau the menu changes daily and is updated throughout the night on a dining room chalkboard.

Photo: Courtesy of Bazaar Meat

José Andrés doesn’t do anything just for show. The environmentalist and humanitarian is a James Beard Award-winning and Michelin-starred chef, and his Las Vegas steakhouse, Bazaar Meats, celebrates all things carnivore.

“I will eat whatever makes me feel like a lion!” Andrés famously says of his SLS Las Vegas menu.

Photo: Courtesy of Bern's

If you can dream it, you can probably find it at Bern’s Steak House in Tampa. Founded by a family of New York ex-pats in the 1950s, Bern’s boasts a cheese cave, dry-aging room, 600,000-bottle wine cellar and dedicated dessert room.

The steakhouse’s eight dining rooms are draped in plush red fabrics and Old World furniture and portraits, and every diner is offered a private tour of the wine cellar and kitchen.

Photo: courtesy Andy Ryan

At Boston Chops, the menu is not meant to be predictable. Here, you can order rarely celebrated cuts like brined tongue, braised tripe and grilled heart.

There’s a respect for the meat here, also evidenced by its “top chops,” 14 ounce-plus slabs like filet mignon that come out with the bone still in, bare, without sides. The restaurants themselves, though (one location in the South End and one in Downtown Crossing), are classically inviting and warm, with plenty of burgundy and mahogany hues and floor-to-ceiling marble walls.

Photo: courtesy Gary He

The Flatiron hotspot Cote has the skeleton of an American steakhouse—a menu with classic cuts like filet mignon and dry-aged New York strips—but fleshes it out with all the flavors and performance of a Korean barbecue joint. Order the Butcher’s Feast, a prix fixe of four cuts of USDA Prime and American Wagyu, seared tabletop on a smokeless grill.

The meal is accompanied with traditional Korean banchan like refreshing pickles and spicy kimchi.

Photo: Courtesy of Cut

Wolfgang Puck’s Michelin-starred CUT, at the Beverly Wilshire hotel, was one of the first attempts to redefine the American steakhouse. In this contemporary space, which resembles the serene, clean look of a museum, the dishes may as well be works of art.

For the bone-marrow flan, for example, segments of bone are filled with a savory custard, propped upright and dramatically drenched in classic red wine Bordelaise.

Photo: Courtesy El Che

Before Chicago’s El Che was known a steakhouse, it was just called a bar.

Then, after three years of firing protein the Argentine way—demanding, live-flame cooking—owner John Manion changed his restaurant’s name to better reflect what his patrons were coming back for: meat.

The chef consulted a motorcycle builder to fabricate an elaborate, 12-foot open hearth at El Che Steakhouse & Bar, which contains two grills, a wood-burning smoker and three flat-top grills, or chapas.

Photo: courtesy Julie Soefer

When Houston chef Chris Shepherd began his One Fifth project, his goal was to open (and then close) a new restaurant concept every year, in the same space, for five years.

But right out of the gate, his first project—One Fifth Steak—failed. Everyone loved it; no one wanted to see this temple to cast iron-seared steaks and chilled crustaceans close its doors.

So when the year was up, Shepherd built Georgia
James.

Here, he’s serving steaks and sides with an unmistakable Texas twang. The 36-month prosciutto comes with Southern johnny (corn) cakes, cracklins (pork rinds), pickled greens and cane syrup. Porterhouse slabs are wet-aged. And sides include chuckwagon favorites like pork and beans.

Photo: courtesy Graziano's

Latin Americans take their beef seriously, with cuts and cooking techniques as unique to each country as their culture.

At Graziano’s in Miami, a family of meat lovers from Buenos Aires has been sharing their steak heritage for generations. What started as an outdoor grilling rig in an empty parking lot has turned into five restaurants and six specialty markets across South Florida, where the Grazianos hand-cut and grill dozens of tender, aged cuts like picanha and bife del carnicero over an open flame.

Photo: courtesy Guard and Grace

At Denver’s Guard and Grace, the glassed wine cellar takes on as dramatic of a role as the typical steakhouse dry-aging room.

Inside the bright, 9,000-square-foot restaurant, a walk-in, floor-to-ceiling cellar holds thousands of bottles of temperature-controlled vino.

It’s a lot to choose from, and the food menu, which includes everything from sushi and wedge salads to handmade gnocchi and pork shanks, isn’t any different.