Do Some Restaurants Really Undercook Steak On Purpose?

Whether you're a restaurant chef or diner, you know that a nice slab of steak is not cheap, with some cuts costing hundreds to thousands of dollars. Even on the lower end, steaks can cost between $20 to $30. For prices so steep, you would hope that restaurants would get your steak right, but you might relate to finding undercooked meat on your plate. Foodies on Reddit have even discussed this surprisingly common phenomenon, with one user writing about a piece of purplish beef: "Ordered a fancy steak from a hotel restaurant. I asked for Medium Rare and I got sent this. Am I wrong for sending it back to cook for a little longer?"

If you've had a similar experience, you might wonder: Are steakhouses actually undercooking your steak cut on purpose? That's what the New York Post alleged in 2018, recounting anecdotal evidence that restaurants have been undercooking customers' steaks "on purpose." A woman interviewed for the piece recounted that her order of medium-rare beef at Wolfgang's Steakhouse "looked like a normal steak — but when we cut into it, it was practically raw." The story posited that this is done intentionally to cut down on costs and loss of inventory.

The conventional wisdom is that a restaurant can always cook an underdone steak a little more, but they'd have to throw out the whole thing if they overcooked it. Several chefs and restaurants have since denied in interviews that steakhouses purposely undercook meat, but other professionals offer a different perspective.

Restaurants trick your taste buds with their steaks, but are they tricking you in other ways? The New York Post alleges that steakhouses save more money by undercooking a steak — saving the steak from going into the bin. Mark Pastore, the president of distributor Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, said steakhouses in New York City have begun using the terminology "medium rare plus" if they wanted their steak to spend a little extra time on the grill. 

The terminology was born out of the tendency for restaurants to undercook their steaks slightly. A Quora user, who claimed to work in a steakhouse, confirmed that they also use medium rare plus at their restaurant, saying it was "an option for us to put into the computer when sending an order to the kitchen." However, Jeff Daniels, a general manager at the popular steak chain Ruth's Chris, told St. Louis Magazine that the chain discouraged the use of the plus system. Ruth's Chris prefers to cook the steak as ordered — though, as Daniels noted, the steak will finish cooking on its plate while on its way to the customer, so a slight "undershoot" in the kitchen can help the finished product come out just right.

Another reason steakhouses may be purposely undercooking your steak is a reluctance to cook a steak past medium. As Kyle Bradish, a chef at Rare Steakhouse in Boston, explained to Eat This, Not That, some steakhouses are reluctant to cook a well-done steak because it's seen by some as damaging the texture of the meat, ruining the steak. Likewise, one person's definition of rare might not match another person's, leading to a discrepancy. 

Several chefs explained why a steakhouse wouldn't purposely undercook a steak. Speaking with St. Louis Magazine, executive chef Lou Rook of steakhouse Annie Gunn explained that his team has never used a "medium rare plus" system before. In Rook's experience, restaurants always try to get the exact degree of doneness that a guest orders. Do steaks sometimes come out undercooked? Sure, but in Rook's view, it's more due to a communication breakdown. The chef explained, "In my opinion, nobody undercooks on purpose. We try to nail the temperature every time. Sometimes the problem is misinterpretation [of a temperature] from the other side."

Meanwhile, 801 Chophouse general manager Griffin Letch didn't mince words with the outlet. In the same article, he told St. Louis Magazine that restaurants don't have time to constantly re-cook steaks, so why would they intentionally undercook them? Letch said, "While undercooking a steak is slightly better than overcooking, we try to be proactive with our clientele to get them exactly what they want."

Of course, one major reason a restaurant wouldn't undercook a steak is because it wouldn't want a bad review. Just check out this Yelp review at Longhorn's: "I asked for a 8 oz sirloin cooked medium and unfortunately the steak was undercooked." After all, steakhouses have a reputation to uphold for transforming standard cuts of beef into memorable dishes.