STEAKHOUSE SUPREME

chef’s table

STEAKHOUSE SUPREME

Reno’s celebrity chef restaurant does it naturally.

WRITTEN BY SANDRA MACIAS
PHOTOS BY CHRIS STOWELL

The edgy chandelier, a massive sculpture of jumbled steel, is the first thing to catch your eye. No doubt about it: Charlie Palmer Steak at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno isn’t shy about making a statement – one that covers everything from décor to progressive American cuisine.

You are in a casino as big as Mackay Stadium. But the restaurant, tucked away from commotion and smoke, is scaled down to an intimate size. The look is clubby-contemporary: Blond wood frames a see-through bar; metal-bead curtains, like key-chain ropes, screen empty spaces; and colors of sand, khaki, and terra-cotta invite warmth.

Service is attentive, but never obtrusive and attention to details, flawless. Clean silverware seems to appear magically after each course and water glasses are even replenished with finesse.

Beef is king

The menu celebrates, of course, steaks: filets, New York strips, rib eyes, T-bones, porterhouses. The latter, a 42-ouncer, is meant for two (though it is said one diner finished it solo).

The kitchen crew is a wizard at cooking a steak. Seasoned simply with salt (as Chef Charlie Palmer says, “… If you’re going to eat a steak, then eat a steak”), the meat is finished off under a 5,000-degree turbo broiler. Beautifully burnished a rich mahogany color, the steak arrives hot and exactly how you like it: deliciously juicy, incredibly flavorful, buttery tender. You know immediately, with the first bite, you’ve got a steak of high quality.

The steakhouse features natural Angus beef from Myer Ranch in Montana. Its cattle, hormone- and antibiotic-free, graze on pasture grass, hay, and grains. They finish on a corn-based diet. They have shelter and sufficient space, qualifying the ranch as “certified humane.”

Sumptuous starters

Turning to appetizers and side dishes, you face hard choices. Such items include glistening oysters on the half shell, fresh out of cold bay waters; hearts of romaine lettuce, as crisp as a spring morning, with a snappy Caesar dressing; organic baby iceberg with Point Reyes blue cheese (a piece of blue heaven in itself). Other options include in-house smoked salmon, soft as butter and tinged with salt; grilled fat asparagus; and a mac-and-cheese dressed to the nines with goat cheese.

Many dishes are studies in contrasting flavors and textures. Such as the exquisite appetizer this past winter of plump foie gras draped over seared ahi. Fast forward to spring (the menu changes seasonally, even within seasons) and a new twist: rhubarb with foie gras. (Say what?)

“The rhubarb is made into a jam or a pie filling and is a sweet-and-sour combination that flavors the foie gras well,” explains David Holman, executive chef of Palmer’s Reno properties (which include Fin Fish and Briscola, in addition to the steakhouse.) “It is one of my favorites and it is unique.”

Beyond beef

Steak is the focus here, but not to the exclusion of other meats, poultry, and seafood. Some of the non-steak items on the spring menu include succulent spring lamb, tender suckling pig, halibut and artichokes stuffed with rich lobster, and sautéed scallops with spring peas so sweet you could eat them raw. One sweet ending highlighting fresh, seasonal ingredients is a sun-kissed apricot tart with honey-lavender ice cream, made in-house.

The wine list marches in step with the food beautifully. Fun to read and explore (and not War and Peace thick), it offers interesting wines from boutique and large estate wineries from California and Oregon to Europe and beyond. Two certified sommeliers on duty nightly help solve pairing dilemmas.

Regional additions

Smart restaurants follow the farm-to-fork path these days. But because of the purchasing agreement with the Grand Sierra, the restaurant doesn’t have “as much leeway as a free-standing restaurant has to buy locally,” Holman says. “But we are trying.”

Charlie Palmer’s 13 restaurants, stretching from New York to Healdsburg, Calif., support the ideal of using regional ingredients.

“We try to support the local farmers wherever we are,” says Owner/Chef Charlie Palmer, who is on the road weekly visiting his properties. “But some are not big enough to provide the amount we need.”

Holman searches for “the best quality we can find.” He buys from farms and ranches that have built reputations on agricultural sustainability and natural animal husbandry. His sources range from the Midwest to California, including KT Hay and Cattle Co., a sustainable ranch in the Sierraville area that provides specialty cuts.

Celebrity Palmer

The three-year-old steakhouse is the first and only celebrity chef restaurant in Reno and Palmer’s second in Nevada. He made his debut in Las Vegas at the Four Seasons Hotel.

“The Grand Sierra invited me,” he says, “but it is more than that to me. Reno’s a beautiful place.”

Palmer’s vision of what a restaurant should be is alive in each of his properties.

But he is not into cloning.

“I’m not interested in cookie-cutter restaurants,” he said in a telephone interview from Aureole, his signature restaurant in New York. “Each has its own personality and identity.”

Holman and General Manager Joel Giandalia have achieved that, adds Palmer.

“They built a family of professionals,” he says. “Its success is due 100 percent to the staff.”

Sandra Macias, a veteran food writer, has covered Reno’s food scene for 25-plus years.  She still dreams of that ahi capped with foie gras she enjoyed at Charlie Palmer Steak this winter. And wonders, Could the rhubarb foie gras combo top that magnificent morsel?