Double-Cut Good: Mastro's Double Cut Porterhouse

Arguably, LA has never been as much of a steak town as it is now. New steakhouses seem to open daily. In a City that was once known for healthy cuisine, we have gone mad for cow. There are hip new steakhouses that look more like five star temples of haute cuisine, retro-red booth locales that pipe in Sinatra and a few legitimate holdovers, like Taylor's, which hung on long enough to be there for the rebirth.

Personally, I'm a Mastro's guy. I've been to Cut, and no doubt about it, the wagyu beef is a thing of beauty. A perfect bite of meat, fat and juice...almost like foie gras in steak-form (and similarly priced). But the run of the mill, non-wagyu steaks at Cut are just good.

At Mastro's, I have never had a good steak, they are all superb. I've never had one that was not perfectly cooked and never had one which did not make me think, upon biting into it, that this is the place for steak in LA, or maybe anywhere.

My worship of Mastro's mastery of meat was doubly enhanced recently when I ordered the immense double-cut porterhouse. The porterhouse, of course is the T-bone which includes a fillet on one side and a New York strip on the other. At Mastro's the double-cut porterhouse comes pre-sliced. Normally, I would be wary of the porterhouse because I like my fillet rare and the fattier New York strip more of a medium rare, but knowing Mastro's penchant for cooking a steak, we ordered it anyway - medium rare. True to form, it was excellent. The fillet was red and tender, the fat on the strip was cooked through - how do they do that?

The Mastro's porterhouse is one of those things that is so good that you don't want to stop tasting it, no matter how full you get; the porterhouse easily feeds two (we're big eaters and two of us couldn't finish the thing).

Add to the excellent steaks a perfectly crafted Woodford Reserve Manhattan, creamed spinach and fried onions and the excellent butter cake for dessert, served, as all desserts are, with a completely gratuitous bowl of whipped cream, and you have the makings of a gluttonous orgy rarely seen in the old, health-conscious LA.

Mastro's Steakhouse
246 N Canon Dr
Beverly Hills, CA 90210-5302
(310) 888-8782