Bend’s Rancher Butcher Chef jumps in meat-first.
Halfway by means of the meal at Bend’s Bos Taurus, the server invitations us to decide on our weapon. She brings a picket field to the desk and describes the three varieties of steak knives inside—French, Japanese, and American, every boasting attributes like folded Damascus metal or a full tang, horn handles or provenance from the maker of samurai swords. It’s awfully fancy for Central Oregon.
Greater than personalization, the knife ritual alerts that steak is to be taken significantly on this 44-seat restaurant in downtown Bend. Launched in 2017, the restaurant brings wonderful eating from a chef who’s cooked in New York Metropolis’s fanciest kitchens, from Le Bernadin to Per Se. Individuals advised George Morris that it “was gonna be means too high-end for Bend, and I discovered that basically encouraging,” he says. “And I’m not being sarcastic.”
In spite of everything, Bend was a beer city. The Central Oregon trip middle stands between Mount Bachelor snowboarding and Sunriver golf programs. It’s the place that birthed Deschutes Brewing after which two dozen different profitable breweries after that. However the Pacific Northwest inhabitants booms (and later pandemic shifts) have turned the town right into a bustling enclave of excessive earners, and now the eating scene has risen with the housing costs.
The leisurely, attentive service at Bos Taurus could also be its hallmark, however steak stands on the middle. Morris tried meats from greater than 20 ranches earlier than making his choice, finally splitting the menu between home cuts (a filet, New York strip), wagyu hybrids from Idaho or Australia, and premium Japanese wagyu, the final priced by the ounce.
Bos Taurus celebrates the marble sample of every steak.
Most diners acknowledge wagyu beef as upscale; not as many know why. Bred for the fats that marbles the meat with texture and taste, Japanese wagyu is graded by that marble, with A5 standing as the highest rating. Which isn’t to impugn the standard of, say, an A2 reduce; Morris calls the Akaushi A2 on the menu his favourite, hailing from Hyogo Prefecture, the a part of Japan dwelling to the town of Kobe. A two-ounce portion is served in 9 slim slices with elegant tweezers for cutlery. Every chew is agency and wealthy, as if the flavour of steak had been distilled to its purest type.
Morris notes that about 80 p.c of tables strive not less than somewhat wagyu, with some of us even ordering a 12-ounce portion (a splurge at $21 to $45 an oz.). However most pair a wagyu taster with a hybrid or home steak, plus basic sides like creamed spinach. The hybrids pair wagyu marbling with extra beefiness, the “sturdy taste you consider if you consider steak.”
At launch, the restaurant performed it on the predictable aspect, however seven years later Morris isn’t afraid to throw lamb neck or uncooked fish on the menu together with his beef. Meals begin with towering popovers, a remnant of Morris’s childhood reminiscence of eating on the basement Neiman Marcus restaurant in Chicago together with his mom when she dragged him purchasing.
Morris has seen the Bend eating scene evolve, simply accepting his wonderful eating idea—although it helps that the small, two-story house is informal sufficient that shorts and flip-flops slot in in addition to a three-piece go well with. Regardless of the worth level, he says, “in some way, no one appears to be like misplaced. And I’d hope that no one feels misplaced.”
The calm of tiny Bos Taurus, a downtown shrine to steak, can be shortly drowned out by the din at Rancher Butcher Chef. In its ethereal open-kitchen house in a rich west Bend neighborhood, the restaurant invitations congeniality with an extended chef’s counter, bar, and crowd of tables.
With all its exposed-bulb lighting fixtures and exposed-beam ceiling, the industrial-
stylish eating room wouldn’t be misplaced in downtown Portland, and certainly its roots started in that metropolis. John and Renee Gorham constructed a restaurant mini-empire within the metropolis together with Toro Bravo, Tasty n Alder, and Shalom Y’all however shuttered or offered them in 2020 attributable to a mix of Covid closures and the fallout from a collection of antagonistic on-line posts by John that promoted vigilante actions and made transphobic remarks. After apologizing for the posts, the couple finally made their solution to Bend for a brand new begin, with Renee largely dealing with the general public position.
Rancher Butcher Chef boasts a big eating room and a brand new spinoff downtown.
They paired with Will von Schlegell, whose household owns a ranch in Fort Klamath to the south, and launched the steakhouse in 2022. RBC has much more steaks on the menu than Bos Taurus—over a dozen—however regardless of the getting older steaks inside glass circumstances within the entryway, steak isn’t essentially the star. Right here the service is breezier, much less of a deep dive into the variations between the cuts. That’s even with sorts unfamiliar to many aficionados, just like the tender teres main or txuleton, which hails from Spain. The only wagyu sits in the identical lists as the opposite steaks.
Right here the draw is the vitality, the shared plates, the candy kick of a bacon-wrapped date to begin (pulled from one of many Gorham’s Portland menus). Sharable sides aren’t as laser centered on supporting a beef entree; the mustard-heavy creamed cabbage would match a pork sausage higher than a porterhouse. Even with a large eating room, reservations are required, and the restaurant received the native Supply Weekly’s restaurant of the 12 months title.
With curiosity in a wider vary of flavors, it’s no shock that the possession opened a derivative, Bar RBC, in June—straight subsequent door to Bos Taurus. The situation is a fluke, says Renee Gorham, and the brand new joint will pull from their affinity for Spain, first explored in Portland’s Toro Bravo. “We’re positively not doing a steakhouse proper subsequent to a steakhouse,” she says. “We didn’t transfer to Bend to compete with Bos Taurus.” They hope to domesticate a celebration ambiance with tapas—although that Rancher Butcher Chef abbreviation continues to be within the title.
What the 2 eating places share is sky-high expectations for Central Oregon’s budding eating tradition. “Bend is so ripe to be an amazing meals metropolis,” Renee says. “Seems like Portland in ’07, in a means.” With a combo of solar, snow, and one million outside sports activities, the city undoubtedly greater than large enough for 2 beef-forward eateries. No jokes about Bend steaks being too uncommon, thanks very a lot.
