Indianapolis Steaks

Holy Cow

BY SALLY HOWARD

All-American steakhouses, emitting their warm neon glows and mouthwatering scents, flank almost every street corner in downtown Indianapolis, jammed with meatloving locals, conference-goers and visiting sports stars.

“There are more steakhouses per square mile in Indy than anywhere else in the country,” says Ruth’s Chris steakhouse manager Ryan Craig. “I’m an Indiana boy, and I was brought up on it—beef and potatoes. It’s in the blood.”

Local restaurateurs call it the “Indy thing.” Opening a fine or mid-end dining operation in Indy? The menu better have a glistening slab or two of steak on it, all flavorful and generously marbled with fat. As evidence of this immutable truth, Indy’s high-end hotel operation, the fabulous Conrad Indianapolis, recently admitted defeat in its year-long attempt to establish a Euroinspired menu at its Du Soleil fine dining restaurant. They have now decided to sign this prime downtown retail space over to The Capital Grille, the pan-US fine steakhouse group famed for its dry-aged, hand-cut beef selections.

The Midwest’s palate for steak can be traced as far back as the “beef bonanza” days of the early 1860s. Nineteenth-century Indiana settlers subsisted on a diet of pork, cornmeal, and wild and seasonal vegetables, but the increased wealth and gentrification of American’s eastern seaboard cities had its impact on Midwestern pantry shelves, too. Cowboys were driving their vast herds east from the raising states of Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa to eventual slaughter in the great meatstockyards of Chicago. Most of this meat was destined to decorate the fine china of New York and Boston, but the sudden bounty of freshly culled beef in the Midwest, twinned with the appearance of the railroads (which enabled rapid transportation of edible goods), were opportunities too good to miss for a Midwestern community with old-European, “meat-and-potatoes”-loving genes. Within a few decades, the modernsteakhouse— and a Midwestern phenomenon—was born.

St. Elmo Steakhouse, the oldest beef purveyor on the Indy block, has been serving steaks with a side of navy-bean soup or tomato juice since 1902. Dignitaries, from John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Bill Clinton to Rudy Giuliani, have all dined on the dish. Coowner Craig Huse shares the great honor of running this venerable institution with his father, Steve. “We use corn-fed, Midwestern beef for our steaks,” Huse says. “I truly believe it to be among the world’s best. Yes, you have the handmassaged Kobe beef from Japan, but the marbling on our home-reared meat can be truly exceptional.”

He also adheres to the Midwest’s no-nonsense notion of messing with your meat as little as possible. “We age our meat on site, with no chemical tenderizing; just a simple aging process, which gives a much more tender steak,” he says. “And, although we can serve vegetarian food if asked, we don’t mess with our menu too much. We serve one appetizer (shrimp with a spicy horseradish sauce—a culinary extreme sport), and that’s the way it will always be.”

So, what should the novice beef lover look for in a steak, then? “In Indy, filet is ordered two-to-one to New York strip,” Huse points out. “New York strip is the connoisseur’s steak; it’s an acquired taste because the extra fat can put people off, but it’s the fat that produces a much superior flavor. And the bone in a boned rib-eye also imparts plenty of flavor. Of course, it goes without saying that it’s a sin to order a quality steak well done!”

WHERE’S THE BEEF? OUR SMOKIN’ STEAKHOUSE PICKS

Whatever your beef-steak preference, we have herded together a few of Indy’s finest steakhouses to satisfy your appetite.