Photo courtesy of TheBusyBrain of Flickr
Let me start off by saying that I think Gordon Ramsay deserves his title as the top chef in many circles. He has proven time and time again why he deserves to be there, and his food speaks for itself on most occasions.
Imagine my surprise when I saw this video floating on the internet:
Ramsay Rants on Well Done Steak
I think what dissapoints me the most about this video is how Gordon Ramsay dances around the issue of how the steak was served. To be honest, it looked like a lump of dried-out crap on the cutting board. You know, it was almost as if the cook making was trying to teach the diner “a lesson.”
Respectfully, I say, “bollocks!” to that. I may not be the top chef in all the world, with a restaurant empire behind me like a huge juggernaut. I do have one thing though. Professionalism.
If a diner were to order a well done steak in my establishment, he would get a piece of meat that would not be tough, dried out and obviously burnt. As Ramsay states in the interview, it is the diner’s perogative to order the steak the way she wants it. Serving up a hunk of crap like that does not earn any respect.
The part that makes me more dissapointed is, are we now supposed to take this new “education?” Are diners now to expect that since they dared to order their steak the way a chef disagrees with, that they deserve to be treated like scrap?
How does one cook a steak well done and maintain juiciness? With skill. Sorry. Any monkey on a grill can serve up steak (or filet in this case) medium rare, and after resting, it will be juicy. That is not the hard part. The real test in skill is, can you serve up the well done filet and get the same response?
All this bit about “you cannot taste the quality” is complete bull. If this was true, then stews, pot roasts, sautes and other various well-cooked versions of beef would taste like utter crap. I would challenge the cook to correctly cook the steak, and then we will see. On Gordon’s defense, the set-up was bull, and Gordon should have jsut told the guy so. Dude, you come to me 6 months after the fact to challenge me on a steak. Bravo!
What do you all think? Should a diner be served and treated like a hunk of crap when they dare to order something, “Well Done?”
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Absolutely not! If a chef wants to cook a bloody rare steak for himself, that’s one thing, but so long as he’s cooking MY steak, it damn well better be on the high side of well-done. Beef cooked less than well-done tastes like blood-soaked marshmallows to me. I LIKE my steaks just a little on the tough side.
There was a memorable incident that happened when I was a boy. I was with my family, and we were out for my birthday (my 14th, I think. The actual year remains a bit fuzzy). I ordered a well-done New York Strip. After having it sent back THREE TIMES, my father went into the kitchen, told the chef to go to hell, and cooked it himself. The owner (not the chef) understood and backed my father up. It was one of the best steaks I’ve ever had.
Most chefs do know how to cook a high-quality steak well-done, but in recent years, that level has resulted in steaks I would consider medium or even medium-rare. In order to get a steak even close to palatable, I must use the words “burn it”.
So far, I’ve been lucky. I have not yet had to repeat the events of that long-ago birthday, but I surely will if I have to. I’m paying for that steak, and I will not accept any chef’s bad attitude.
You hit the nail on the heat John. The last word ends with the customer, no matter what. I remember having a co-worker freak because someone asked for ketchup in the Pan-Asian restaurant. What a dumbass that customer was, huh? The response? Give him his ketchup, and can I have a new co-worker please.
Honestly, I find that most chefs need to remove their heads out of their ass. I personally like a steak a bit on the rarer side. I would not hold it against someone to order it welldone. Do I agree? There is no point in answering that. At the end of the day, it is the customer who is right.
I learned that lesson when I was 16. Someone ordered a well done ribeye steak. I cooked it, and it was sent back. I cooked it more. It was sent back. I then pounded the crap out of it, and then I nuked it for 2 minutes. It was literally a hockey puck. In the end, the customer phoned downstairs with a “compliments to the chef!”. Turns out it was the best steak he ever had. Go figure.
You can disagree with Ramsey’s antics in the interview, but his point about customer service & the interviewers tactics were spot on. If the person who ordered the steak wasn’t satisfied they should of said something when they received it. Professional restaurants will take the time to fix these problems, and Ramsey’s restaurants are professional… even if you think he isn’t.
Instead someone took a picture so they could have a moment of glory with a “gotcha” interview. It’s cheap journalism.
As far as the well done comments are concerned, you might enjoy the taste of a well done steak, but Ramsey didn’t say it steaks cooked in that manner won’t have taste. He said you can’t taste the quality of the beef, and you can’t. Also, steaks have very little blood in them… that red colour & liquid you see is not blood, it is myoglobin.
@Steve – You make some good points on the this matter, and you write in a concise manner, defending your point with logic. Ramsey contends that a well done steak some how destroys the delicate flavor of the meat. That is also true, and well spoken. I also think that Ramsey handled himself well on the blindsiding of the “journalist”. I might be wrong, but I do believe that the customer who orders a steak well done deserves to have the best that a chef can give them, without a lecture on how a steak can be cooked. I believe that takes more skill than just cooking it to the chef’s desired temperature.
Thank you for your reply and your viewpoint on this topic Steve.