We Like Big Butts…at New York’s Best Steakhouses

You’ve eaten beef butt more times than you can probably imagine, though it’s likely that it went by names like top or bottom sirloin. The top sirloin, or top butt, is tender and yields straight-up sirloin steaks as well as familiar cuts like strip steak and skirt steak; the bottom sirloin, or bottom butt, can be used for sirloin tip or tri-tip, and sometimes it’s ground into hamburger. Whether you like top or bottom, beef butt is some delicious meat.

 

At most of the best steakhouses in the United States, if you order a sirloin, it’s going to be prime and it’s going to be a cut from the top of the loin, the best of the butt.

 

Here are five New York steakhouses, each serving beautiful cuts of butt.

 

Keen’s Steakhouse. At an old-timey New York restaurant like Keen’s Steakhouse, you’d expect to get traditional cuts like sirloin, and Keen’s delivers with Prime Sliced Sirloin and Prime Sirloin Sandwich, as well as Prime Sirloin Salad. All the sirloin for these menu items is hand-picked and dry aged on premises. The Prime New York Sirloin is one of Keen’s “classic” platters, and it seems like the right thing to get at a place like Keen’s, which has been around since the late nineteenth century.

 

 

Smith & Wollensky.. Another classic steakhouse with a big city vibe, Smith & Wollensky does the butt two big ways: as a single of 14 or 18 ounces, or as a tummy-stretching 36 ounces of sirloin. The latter, larger steak is supposed to be for two, but if you’re really hungry, and you really like big butts, this big, big piece of meat is for you. A sirloin steak, depending on the cut, can be flavorful if sometimes a little chewy, but at Smith & Wollensky, you know you’re getting the best steak prepared by some of the best chefs in the business, so your sirloin will be the best bite of butt around.

 

Mark Joseph Steakhouse. Broiling is a traditional way to prepare a steak, and the intense heat crisps up the fat and creates a delicious crust over the meat. At Mark Joseph Steakhouse, the sirloin is broiled with the bone-in, and although the fat around the edge will be beautifully caramelized, the meat at the bone will be moist and tender, as delicious a piece of beef butt as you will ever taste.

 

Empire Steak House. Empire Steak House serves a Prime New York Sirloin, which is a strip steak cut from the sirloin primal, also called the “top loin.” Think of it as the larger, somewhat meatier side of a T-bone or porterhouse. And when it’s prime, it’s tender and full of flavor, which is exactly the way they serve it at Empire Steak House.

 

Porterhouse New York City. The strip steak, the upper part of the sirloin, the top loin, is given special attention at Porterhouse New York City. Here you can enjoy truly wonderful preparations of true Japanese, 100% Wagyu, graded A5 from Miyazaki Prefecture, or from Snake River Farms in Idaho, both spectacular pieces of butt.