Steak on a plate

A steakhouse more than 100 years old, in an unfashionable part of Brooklyn in New York City, with no choice of main course and famously abrupt old-timer waiters, is the inspiration behind two restaurants that are just about to open in London.

Peter Luger serves only enormous porterhouse steaks, butter-basted and never cooked more than rare. Has done ever since it opened in 1887. Fans and visitors from all over the world (me included) slaver at the memory or the anticipation, the way those who appreciate mainlining red meat do at the thought of the juiciest, tenderest, purest flesh.

At a time when it might seem mad to bank on a desire to eat cow, meat-eaters are convinced that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. If we're to eat beef, we want to know where it comes from, that we can totally trust it, and that it doesn't get any better.

Ever quick to try novel ways of eating out (he's done starters and puds only, family-style shared roasts and British tapas), Antony Worrall Thompson's Wiz restaurant in London becomes the Notting Grill at the beginning of next month. Inspired by New York's classic steakhouses – Sparks, Smith & Wollensky and Peter Luger – it will serve grilled T-bone, fillet, rump and sirloin steaks.

"The time is right to get back to basics. I've always wanted to meddle with food – now I want to let it speak for itself," Worrall Thompson claims.

The meat that will dare to speak its name will be pure-bred Aberdeen Angus, hung for 28 days. Shorthorn, Ruby Reds and Welsh Black are also on his shortlist. The Grill plans to feature a different breed every month.

"I'm going to name the farm and bring in the pedigree certificate if people want," Worrall Thompson says.

Two years ago Sophie Mogford and Rupert Power were working their way through one of Peter Luger's finest when they looked around and asked themselves: "Why doesn't anyone do anything similar in London?" The couple came home to find the right place to open a steakhouse and get their teeth into the subject. They even took a butchery course alongside teenage apprentices in east London. Sophie worked in the Gaucho Grill as a waitress. At a time when piles of burning cattle blighted the countryside, their belief that selling steak would work barely wavered. As they sat at the bar in Le Caprice for a bolstering drink, they were reassured to see everyone eating steak and chips.

Early next month Sophie's Steakhouse in Fulham Road will show whether their instinct is right and their research has paid off. They're selling steak from Scotland and Northern Ireland, from Welsh Black and Aberdeen Angus cattle, aged for 28 days after slaughter. "Hanging is the make or break," says Mogford.

Supermarkets, dismissed by most who take their meat seriously, sell beef that has been hung for a matter of days, not weeks. The brighter red the meat, the less it has been hung and the duller the taste. We've become afraid of fat, but the best-tasting steak is dark red and marbled with contrasting veins of fat, which is where the flavour and succulence lies. "Supermarket meat makes me want to weep. You know it's going to taste of nothing," Mogford says.

Steak has stayed surprisingly popular in pubs and restaurants, despite reports of the demise of meat-eating. And the best never went away, either. The Champany Inn, west of Edinburgh, opened nearly 20 years ago, cooking nothing but sirloin, rib eye, fillet and pope's eye (Scottish for rump) steaks from an Aberdeen Angus and Blue Grey cross. Pure Aberdeen Angus is too dense for the charcoal grill, the chef and owner Clive Davidson believes. "We serve great big pieces of meat and we're full, selling steak all the time." A full-time butcher gets through 20 beasts a week just for the one restaurant. Davidson has front-line evidence that "steak is a kind of addiction".

A few such places have kept the flames alive during the British meat industry's darkest hours, but what's new is the growing connoisseurship of steak among chefs and customers. John Torode started investigating steak when he was the launch chef at Conran's Mezzo, and subsequently at Bluebird. For Smiths of Smithfield it became his mission. It's a magnet for carnivores in the meat-packing district of London, and it's packed. "People hadn't experienced great meat in a long time," Torode says.

He trawled the country for suppliers and his fine-meat menu credits farmers such as Gilbert McTaggart of Islay, whose rump steak is aged for 26 days; Gary Wallace of Chesterton Farm for his longhorn sirloin; and Emrys Davies at the Welsh Hook Meat Centre in Pembrokeshire, whose beef was highly commended at last year's Organic Food Awards. Davies turned organic 14 years ago. He admits: "It has been a slow, hard grind, but it has taken off in the last three to four years." Now he and neighbouring organic farmers are selling steak, hung for 17 to 21 days, as fast as they can produce it, to (among others) Woods Brasserie in Cardiff, Hakkasan in London, mail-order customers, and a handful of shops such as Lidgate's in Holland Park and Planet Organic. Those who produce the best steak have nothing to beef about.

Peter Luger, 178 Broadway (Driggs Avenue), Brooklyn, New York (00 1 718 387 7400); Notting Grill, 123A Clarendon Road, London W11 (020-7229 1500); Sophie's Steakhouse, 311-313 Fulham Road, London SW10 (020-7352 0088); Champany Inn, Linlithgow, West Lothian (01506 834 532). Smiths of Smithfield, 67-77 Charterhouse Street, London EC1 (020-7236 6666)

How to cook

The most fabulous steak can be ruined by bad cooking. Never put it under a grill. Always let the cooked meat rest before serving it. "People are under the mistaken impression that meat should be eaten hot straight from the pan," Hans Baumann says. "Totally, utterly wrong."

The best results are achieved with a very hot ridged griddle or a frying pan. Sear steak on both sides in a little olive oil and butter (it's best to brush oil on to the meat – too much moisture will ruin it). This seals the meat, releasing the grilled taste and aroma that make the carnivore's teeth ache with longing. Turn down the heat and cook for no more than a couple of minutes on each side, depending on thickness and where on the rare to well done spectrum it's expected to be. Lift out on a rack and let the steak rest for five to 10 minutes, keeping it warm until you serve it. This helps the juices, drawn to the surface during cooking, work their way back to the centre, keeping the steak moist throughout.

As well as rare, medium and well done, some steak lovers insist on having their steak black and blue, or Pittsburgh style – cooked at such a high temperature that it's almost black on the outside and so barely cooked that it's dark red within. Christopher Gilmore, the owner of the two Christopher's grills in London, won't eat it any other way.

Fat counts

We've been conned into believing that the redder and leaner the meat, the better. In fact, flavour comes from the fat and darker flesh shows it has been hung to bring out the taste. Meat marbled with fat is more succulent and savoury than lean. The most obviously marbled of all cuts is rib eye, prized by butchers, and Sophie Mogford's favourite. Hans Baumann, the managing director of the mail-order butcher, Donald Russell, says: "People are turned off by the eye of fat, but it's tastier than a fillet steak."

Rump is the chewiest, cheaper cut, but it still tastes good. Sirloin should be lean and tender, but still marbled and with a strip of fat along one side. Fillets are nuggets of the tenderest, sweetest meat. T-bone combines fillet and sirloin attached to a T-shaped bone.

Donald Russell Direct (01467 629 666, www.donaldrusselldirect.com)

Good breeding

Bob Kennard of Graig Farm Organics says there are good physiological reasons why traditional British breeds should be encouraged. Herefords and Welsh Black are hardy enough to live out of doors so the climate determines their distribution of fat – and their superior flavour. They're smaller than continental breeds such as Limousin or Charolais, so yield less meat and make less profit, but the flesh is more succulent.

"My favourite breed," John Torode says, "is Dexter. The steaks are small, well marbled, smoky, with a lovely sweet finish. But they're not at their best at this time of year. White Park is a bit stronger; the daddy of them all – good, strong, big, meaty flavour."

Antony Worrall Thompson says: "I thought marbling was down to feed, but it's down to the breed." But feed does affect the flavour; ideally the cows should eat grass in the summer and silage and oats (not barley, which produces whiter fat) in the winter.

Taste also depends on the animals' welfare and how they have been looked after. Stress when slaughtering leads to tougher meat because of a build-up of acids. Beef should be hung for two to four weeks. Meat shrinks as it ages, which is why cheaper meat is not hung as long – and tastes less good.