The City’s Top Ten Steaks
When I named Harris' one of The Ten Most Overrated Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, I said that they didn’t produce a top five steak in the City, maybe not even a top 10 steak and promised to do a list.
Here it is – my take on the City’s Top Ten Steaks. Harris’ is absent.
Before anyone goes postal on me, let me be very clear about one thing – I said steaks, not steakhouses. A ten best steakhouse list in this city would be totally lame because there aren’t 10 good ones. But there are a lot of good steaks – they just happen to be on the menus of restaurants that serve other things as well.
1) I consider Boboquivari's (aka, Bobo’s) filet to be the best steak in the City. And being a rib-eye guy, rating a filet as my fave is saying something. Bobo’s cooks their meat charred on the outside, juicy on the inside even at medium temperature, just the way I like it. The effect is created by pan searing, an underrated technique that I’ve used at home with great success.
2) Lark Creek Steak borders on the ridiculous with the variations of steak available on their menu. As Michael Bauer recently observed, “Back in the previous steakhouse heyday, diners simply ordered their preferred cut. These days, few things are straightforward. Would you like a 16-ounce rib-eye ($32) corn-fed steak from Brandt? A 16-ounce grass-fed rib-eye ($34) from Uruguay? Or how about an American Kobe bavette steak ($28) from Snake River Farms? … Waiters go into so much detail about how some steaks are wet-aged for 35 days, while others are dry-aged on the premises that my eyes glaze over. Just bring me the beef.” After Mackie and I subjected our waiter to the Spanish Inquisition during an early LCS visit, we settled on the 16 ounce USDA Prime boneless rib-eye and haven’t looked back. It’s a great steak, expertly prepared. A bit of a tweener in size, it can be shared but sometimes we get greedy and each order our own.
3) Lean rib-eye sounds like an oxymoron but that’s exactly what El Raigón serves. Their center-cut, Argentinean-style rib-eye manages to be tender and tasty with little fat.
4) Yes, I know it’s a chain and yes, the menu presentation is ultra-hokey but Morton's turns out a darn good steak. Makie and I took my father to Morton’s for his birthday a few years back and he declared it the best steak he’d ever had. With more than 80 years of steak-eating experience, that puts Morton’s atop a very large pile. My usual practice, as usual, is to go for the rib-eye. They list it as a “slightly smaller” steak on their web site. That’s sort of like saying that the Empire State Building is a “slightly shorter” than the Sears Tower.
5) The Bell Tower's rib-eye is great, and at $21.50, including potatoes and creamed spinach, is a deal. Get the sauce and bleu cheese butter on the side – the cut-on-the-premises meat is so good they aren’t necessary.
6) The Acme Chop House's 22 ounce, bone-in rib-eye is a great, big steak that cries out to be shared by two people. Charred, juicy and yummy, this baby is a heart attack on a plate for a single diner. The problem with sharing it is that there’s only one bone. Be selfish and grab it. Gnaw on it. The meat close to the bone has the best flavor. Eschew the superfluous sauces. The steak runs on the fatty side but, hey, it’s a rib-eye.
7) I know, I know, the same concerns as Morton’s plus the steaks are finished in butter. Get over it, Ruth's Chris cooks a mean steak. Again, ribeye.
8) COCO500's marinated flank steak is fantastic. It’s a thinner cut than many of the other steaks on the list, superbly seasoned and expertly cooked a la plancha.
9) What’s a list of best steaks without a steak frites? Fringale's Black Angus rib-eye steak is my favorite in the City. Skip the red wine butter, it’s unneeded. I’m going out on a limb a bit because I haven’t eaten at Fringale since the chef change. However, Michael Bauer’s update indicates that they haven’t missed a beat, so I’m going with 'em.
10) Isa's grilled flat iron steak would have ranked higher on this list were it not for their switch from bleu cheese butter to Bordelaise sauce. The steak’s great but the bleu butter added an extra kick. I’ve yet to try it with the Bordelaise, so I can’t say it’s a bad thing. But, I know I’ll miss the bleu cheese butter, one of only two renditions I’ve ever liked.
What are your favorite steaks in the City? Please tell.
Harris'
2100 Van Ness Avenue
at Pacific Street Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94109
415-673-1888
Map
Web site
Food inspection score: 100
Symbol of Excellence: No
Boboquivari's
1450 Lombard Street
between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
Map
Web site
Food inspection score: 92
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Lark Creek Steak
845 Market Street
Westfield San Francisco Centre, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-593-4100
Map
Web site
Food inspection score: 96
Symbol of Excellence: No
El Raigón
510 Union Street
near Grant Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-291-0927
Web site
Food inspection score: 98
Symbol of Excellence: No
400 Post Street
at Powell Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
415-986-5830
Web site
Food inspection score: 100
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
at Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94118
No web site
Food inspection score: 88
Symbol of Excellence: No
Acme Chop House
24 Willie Mays Plaza
at King Street and 3rd Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415-644-0240
Web site
Food inspection score: 92
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
1601 Van Ness Avenue
at California Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
415-673-0557
Web site
Food inspection score: 84
Symbol of Excellence: No
500 Brannan Street
at 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Web site
Food inspection score: 96
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Fringale
570 4th Street
between Brannan Street and Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Web site
Food inspection score: 94
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Isa
3324 Steiner Street
between Lombard Street and Chestnut Street
San Francisco, California 94123
415-567-9588
Web site
Food inspection score: 89
Symbol of Excellence: No
The steak at Bobo's is quite good, but eating one in front of one of those harlequins distresses me greatly. So does ordering everything a la carte.
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Mackie shares your distress. She claims to hate the steak but I think it's more the harlequins. I got her to go once but never since. She had the same problems with the marionettes at La Folie before its remodel. Did those bother you as well?
Ordering a la carte doesn't distress me if, and this is a big if, the prices reflect the lack of sides. But at $39 for a steak and $8 per side (minimum of two if you want both a starch and a green), it reaches too deeply into my pocket for me to be anything close to a regular partaker.
While I rate Bobo's as a better steak, I'm more likely to be found dining at El Raigón because it's almost as good and is a much better value.
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