Earthtimes.org - USA - Celebrity chefs are increasingly crossing over into the steakhouse market, including a high-end meatery run by
Wolfgang Puck in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Puck's steakhouse, Cut, has been sold out nearly every night since it opened one year ago, USA Today reported Friday. Observers credit the success of Cut, as well as
Emeril Lagasse's Delmonico Steakhouse in Las Vegas and
Bobby Flay's Bobby Flay Steak in Atlantic City, N.J., to their female-friendly environments, selection of gourmet side-dishes and unusual architecture.
"Most steakhouses are so cookie-cutter, and I think it was only a matter of time before something changed," Puck said. "Dining out is like theater, and in the old times, steakhouses were not theater."
"A huge number of people are making an awful lot of money," said international restaurant consultant
Michael Whiteman, "and they are spending it in restaurants as if there were no tomorrow. These people are interested in showing off their connoisseurship. They are interested in the nuances of dry- and wet-aged beef, of grass-fed organic cattle and corn-fed feed-lot cattle, and they are willing to pay a lot of money to see what the differences are."
