May/June 2006

High Steaks

A guide to picking, grilling and enjoying the perfect slab-o-beef.

By Patrick Evans-Hylton

If there were an official steak season, this would be it.

Coming out of a sleepy winter hibernation, grills across Hampton Roads are heating up now that warm weather is here. Sure, people fire up the barbecue other times of the year, and we know grilling can be done indoors, but we like our steak done old school—cooked in the big grassy expanse of a backyard, aromatic smoke wafting into the blue sky, and manly men flipping pieces of beef as big as Volkswagen Bugs until nicely charred on the outside and juicy and pink in the middle.

Ahhh ... total Zen.

But what some folks do to their steaks is absolutely sinful—beef cooked until it’s dry and chewy, then doused in a sugary, puckering sauce that masks any residual flavor should be a capital offense.

Because we’ve declared this Official Steak Season, it’s our job to let you know how best to avoid the sins of steak. We gathered expert advice from Hampton Roads chefs at restaurants known for being a cut above: David Schneider and Pete Stein of Salacia at the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront, Gerald Cox of Shula’s 347 in Norfolk and Kevin Jones of Schlesinger’s in Newport News.

For the rest of this story, see the May/June 2006 issue of Hampton Roads Magazine, currently available on newsstands.