Quality Meats, which just opened on the beach, finds novel ways to bring the steakhouse into the 21st century.
At Quality Meats, the heart of the menu is its myriad of hearty entrées, ranging from oversize “Butcher’s Cuts” to braised veal shank to this bone-in rib steak.
Michael Stillman was attending high school in 1997 when his father, celebrated restaurateur Alan Stillman, opened a branch of his Smith & Wollensky steakhouse on South Beach. Michael would eventually play an integral role in managing the nationally expanding business, and in 2007, when all but the flagship New York venue were sold, father and son founded Fourth Wall Restaurants. This past February, under that group’s widening umbrella, Michael debuted a second outlet of his successful New York steakhouse, Quality Meats, in the former Bancroft Hotel on South Beach. A chip off the old butcher block, you might correctly note, but understand that Quality Meats is not Smith & Wollensky.
“There are a lot of similar ideas,” the younger Stillman explains, “but with a different generational view.” The divergence in aesthetics is evident as soon as one enters the elegant two-level, 200-seat space (replete with expansive wraparound patio). The design firm AvroKO used the Bancroft’s classic Art Deco elements and terrazzo floor as a foundation, but tweaks it with rich teaks, warm textures, and the rustic accoutrements of a family-owned butcher shop. (The hotel’s original check-in desk now functions as a faux butcher counter, the reception desk as a service bar.)
“We like to have fun with things that are familiar,” says chef/partner Craig Koketsu, and though he could be describing the balance of tradition and whimsy evident in the décor, the chef is speaking of the approach he and Executive Chef Patrick Rebholz have taken with the menu: big beefy offerings offset by a lighter, highly inventive, market-driven sensibility.
Executive Chef Craig Koketsu plating Quality Meats’ tomato and stracciatella salad.
This means diners can start their meal with a local farmer’s salad, a tower of pristine shellfish, hog snapper ceviche sparkling with sunchokes and citrus, or The Elvis—meaty slabs of grilled, house-cured bacon glazed with tamarind miso and served with peanut butter sauce and jalapeño jelly jazzed with minced apples.
The heart of the menu is naturally steered toward steak. The three primary cuts are a 24-ounce tomahawk rib steak, an 18-ounce bone-in sirloin (each dry aged for 28 days), and a 12-ounce filet mignon. “We didn’t want to do wagyu and 17 types of beef, and all that,” says Stillman. What separates QM from the herd instead are underutilized and supersize “Butcher’s Cut” meats that are cured, smoked, or dry aged in-house (intended for two to four to share). This falls right in Rebholz’s wheelhouse; the former chef de cuisine at Charleston’s Peninsula Grill possesses estimable skills in large-format butchering (as well as in farm-to-table cooking). He enthusiastically details the rarity of QM’s 64-ounce Angus double-rib steak, and is downright gleeful when describing the whole suckling pig confit that gets dry-rubbed, tied into a barrel shape, and “submerged and cooked in duck fat until it almost falls apart.”
The natural byproduct of butchering is homemade charcuterie, and Rebholz takes full advantage with riveting renditions of smoked soppressata and duck bacon.
The new space retains former elements of the Bancroft Hotel (pictured, the QM bar).
At QM, non-carnivores “won’t feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick,” insists Koketsu. “Our fish dishes are really strong.” Consider the “New York bagel-inspired” branzino, with its crisp coat of “everything” spice (sesame, poppy seed, et al.) and accompaniments of smoked cream cheese and pickled onions. “[It’s] food people can relate to,” Rebholz says of his focus, “but in a way that hasn’t been done.”
This same spirit extends to delicate sides such as corn crème brûlée with sweet, crackly crust, beet-glazed carrots, and grilled oyster mushrooms straight from the farms of Homestead.
“My father was very excited about South Beach since way back,” reflects Stillman, “and we’ve only become more so.” Regarding their enthusiasm for Miami, there is no generation gap. 1501 Collins Ave., Miami Beach, 305-340-3333