In honor of National Filet Mignon Day, Chef Jonathan Bennett of Red the Steakhouse and 811 Kitchen Bar Lounge shows us some tips on grilling the perfect steak.
The Perfect Filet:
In order to grill the perfect Filet, it's not as difficult as you think. Bennett's five tips include:
- Selection
- Slather
- Salt
- Sear
- Set
About Chef Bennett:
While in the kitchen, we also had the chance to ask Chef Bennett five questions about himself.
Q: What is your favorite thing to cook:
My favorite thing to cook is probably barbecue. I grew up on a pig farm in North Carolina, and you know, North Carolina is kind of this 'divided' barbecue state between vinegar based and tomato based, so I got to learn and appreciate both styles.
Q: If you had to cook the perfect steak, how would you cook it and what toppings would you put on it?
I've got a green egg at home, which is this ancient Chinese grill - it's a huge ceramic thing and you can really control the temperature, really well. And it would probably be a strip steak. I used to be a rib eye guy, and then I kind of moved over to the strip steak world. And I love rosemary. Go snip some rosemary, let it sit on the top as you're finishing the other sides and just a little bit of olive oil.
Q: What was the inspiration for this restaurant (811 Kitchen Bar Lounge) and how is it different from Red?
So Red is kind of this innovative steakhouse and this is kind of a worldly traveled restaurant. My partners and I, we eat and we eat, and we travel the world, and the states and the neighborhoods, and we really just tried to pull some things from some different cultures that we really like and appreciate. So there's everything from sushi to robata and even the robata is not necessarily bound by tradition, it's kind of inspired by tradition but not limited by it. We have pork from Spain, I'm from North Carolina so we had to have some Old Bay shrimp on there, just fun stuff like that.
Q: What's your favorite international kind of food?
Probably Vietnam, Thailand, Korea - these new up and coming flavors that are not new and up and coming flavors, they're flavors we're starting to appreciate in the states.
Q: When you're not cooking what do you like to do?
Sleep? My day started this morning at 6:30, I made bacon and eggs for the boys and a latte for my wife and I went to work, so there's not a lot of other time.
