How we cook steak over wood fire

There is a brick hearth in our kitchen with a wood fire in it, and the dry-aged steaks go over that rather than under a gas broiler. This is a more annoying way to run a kitchen. Somebody has to build the fire, manage it through service, and read it constantly, because unlike a gas burner it does not hold a setting.

It is worth the trouble, and here is the actual reason why.

What wood does that gas doesn't

Two things.

The first is heat. A wood fire at working temperature radiates harder than a standard gas broiler, and that intensity is what drives the Maillard reaction — the browning that produces the crust. More radiant heat means you develop that crust faster, which means the interior spends less time cooking while you wait for the outside to catch up. A better crust and a more evenly rare center are the same technical problem.

The second is smoke, but not in the way people assume. This is not barbecue; a steak is over the fire for minutes, not hours, so it is not absorbing deep smoke flavor. What it picks up is the volatile compounds coming off burning hardwood at the moment of searing — a thin aromatic layer on the crust itself. Subtle, and immediately obvious when it is missing.

A gas broiler cooks a steak. A wood fire seasons it while it cooks.

Ordering a temperature and meaning it

Steak temperature is the most misunderstood thing in a restaurant, largely because people order the word they have always ordered rather than the thing they want. Roughly:

• Rare — cool red center, very soft. Excellent on a thick cut, unpleasant on a thin one.
• Medium rare — warm red center, still yielding. This is where most steaks are at their best, and it is not a coincidence that it is what most cooks order.
• Medium — pink through the middle, noticeably firmer. Perfectly reasonable. Ignore anyone who sneers.
• Medium well — a trace of pink. You are trading juiciness for reassurance.
• Well done — no pink. If this is what you like, order it and enjoy it, but order a cut with more fat in it, because there is no moisture left except what the fat provides.

One genuinely useful tip: on a thick cut like a king-cut rib eye, order one step rarer than your instinct. A thick steak carries far more residual heat and keeps cooking on the plate.

Strip versus rib eye

The two cuts we cook most, and they are not interchangeable.

A New York strip is leaner, with a firmer, tighter grain and a strong beefy flavor. It has a fat cap along one edge and comparatively little marbling through the middle. It rewards precision — a well-cooked strip is superb, and an overcooked one goes tough quickly. Chimichurri works beautifully on it because the acid cuts the density.

A rib eye is fattier, with marbling running through the muscle. That intramuscular fat renders as it cooks and bastes the steak from inside, which makes it richer, more forgiving of a minute's inattention, and heavier. Our king cut is genuinely a two-person steak, and blue cheese butter on it is gilding something already substantial. It is the anchor of the steakhouse version of a date night.

Short version: strip if you want to taste beef, rib eye if you want to taste fat. Both are correct answers.

The rest of the fire

The hearth does not only do steak. It runs most of the night, and what comes off it changes with the ticket. But the steaks are what it was built for, and they are the clearest demonstration of why the extra work is justified.

If you want the other side of this kitchen, our plant-based menu gets the same attention, which surprises people at a place with a wood fire; the whole plant-based list is on the vegan dining page. And for the two dishes this city is actually famous for, start with beef on weck and the Friday fish fry, or work through the whole regional vocabulary at once.

The cuts, sizes, and prices are on the steak section of the menu. The fire gets going in the afternoon and where we cook them is 3151 Main Street.