Vegans and vegetarians, kindly avert your glance. Even as meeting attendees clamor for ever-more healthy dining and chefs find new ways to deliver huge flavor with plant-based creations, counterpoint is inevitable. It’s a yin and yang thing. We may accept that Leonardo da Vinci and Martina Navratilova performed pretty well as vegetarians, but most of us still get at least the occasional craving for caveman fare. In fact, USDA says we each ate an average 55.6 pounds of beef in 2016. So, if a perfectly charred slab of meat is your staple or sometime treat, you might as well go whole, well, hog. Here are hotel restaurants that satisfy a jones for something big and meaty on the plate.
The New Yorker, New York City
In a basement bank vault from the 1930s, Butcher & Banker has Art Deco style and old safety deposit boxes. At the cash register is chef Scott Campbell, an alum of Le Cirque, Windows on the World and Union Square Cafe. He’s banking on the massive Kan-Kan Pork Chop (pictured above), a grand arch of double loin chops, belly and cracklings, served with caramelized Catskill apples. His Tomahawk Ribsteak is drizzled with Johnnie Walker butter.
XV Beacon, Boston
Adjacent to this luxury boutique hotel in the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood is the aptly named Mooo. It can handle up to 50 guests seated and receptions with up to 65. This would be the place to try tenderloin of Beef Wellington with foie gras and duxelles (finely chopped mushrooms, shallot and herbs). The 24-ounce porterhouse can be had au poivre or with retro sauces such as bearnaise and bordelaise.
Big Texan Motel, Amarillo, Texas
The 54-unit, AAA-rated motel welcomes groups with a lobby reception and has Texas-sized beds and Jacuzzi tubs. But your boots will be made for walkin’ straight to adjacent Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the world-famous 72-ounce steak dinner…which is free if eaten within one hour. You might want to start with an order of mountain oysters. Or maybe not. “If you think it’s seafood, go with the shrimp,” as it says on the menu.
Nines Hotel, Portland, Oregon
Go for the New York Steak Tasting at Urban Farmer, a sooo-Portland steakhouse with cowhide booths in the soaring, eighth-floor atrium of LEED-certified Nines Hotel near Pioneer Square. You’ll get juicy portions of Oregon grass-fed, California corn-fed and Oregon grain-finished, 21-day, dry-aged steaks. And why not have that with a side of Twice Baked Fingerling Potato Tart, Roasted Foraged Mushrooms or Popcorn Grits (with poached egg and barbecue sauce)?
SLS Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas
At Bazaar Meats by Jose Andres, the James Beard Award-winning chef offers a Spanish-style, oak-wood-fired, bone-in rib eye called Vaca Vieja. That translates to “old cow.” In fact, it’s an 8-year-old Holstein, a former milking cow from Northern California (“in the European tradition, a more mature animal with more pronounced flavor,” the menu promises). The steak is sourced from Mindful Meats of Petaluma, California, an organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, pasture-raised-beef company.
