MEAT SHOW

The new STK Steakhouse in Oak Brook brings the sizzle with butter-bombed rib-eyes, some serious beats and just enough glitzy excess to keep your beef buzz going all night long.

There is a man hovering over my 8-ounce Australian flank steak with a spoon in one hand and a mini blowtorch in the other.

“May I?” he asks with a crooked smile, suggesting he’s played the role of tableside arsonist before. I nod, inviting him to proceed, knowing that at all STK steakhouses—including its newest location in Oak Brook—the waitstaff is trained to play with fire just as often as the cooks on the line.

In the spoon sits a schmear of umami butter that’s the same color as the fur of a Brookfield Zoo tiger: an orange base with streaks of black pepper. Our server’s mini torch, the kind used to crisp the top layer of a crème brulee, ignites with a soft hiss, releasing a flickering arrow of blue flame. The heat is applied to the undercarriage of the spoon. The butter slowly puddles, then liquefies, loping over the side of the spoon and dribbling onto my steak like pumpkin-hued droplets.

He guides the dribbling molten butter over the entire surface of the steak, the way you’d try to ensure every kernel in your bag of movie-theater popcorn is moisturized. After about 10 seconds of making it rain STK style the torch is extinguished. A small cumulus cloud of butter remains, which is flipped onto the steak. Seeking low ground, it oozes and sizzles, migrating into every remaining crevice.

Our server lowers his head slightly to signal the performance is over and says, “Enjoy your steak, sir.”

One might assume that things would grow calm after all this tableside drama, but the opposite occurs. Two servers burst from behind the bar, one waving around a mini strobe light, the other balancing a tray of purple-colored shots. Somewhere behind them, a DJ transitions from a Bad Bunny track to what the twentysomethings around us would undoubtedly refer to as a golden oldie: a remix of Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative.”

The shots are passed out to every table. What do you do now? Let the steak rest or down my mysterious purple elixir in one gulp? There’s only one viable play here: Knock it back like an undergrad on spring break. It’s the color of a Crown Royal bag yet tastes like a blackberry flavored lemon drop. I feel a momentary sugar rush. I then carve into my steak, which delivers a different but altogether meatier buzz.

So did we enjoy our steaks? Of course we did. My Wagyu flat iron, an underrated and richly flavored cut, delivered some serious MSG notes, as if someone had carpet bombed it with soy and liquified shiitake mushrooms. My wife’s dry-aged ribeye was equally satisfying in a more traditional way, especially since it was accompanied by two sauces. The first was a loose, garlicky Argentinian-style chimichurri. Dipping sauce number two was STK’s signature steak sauce—a ruddy, slightly jammy sauce that tasted like someone rolled a bottle of A1 through a grove of plum trees.

The lesson? At STK, restraint is no virtue. It’s the restaurant’s excesses that have always been its primary draw. The menu demands that you drizzle, smear and gild your steak with as many add-ons as you can afford: different compound butters, perhaps a top coat of jalapeno-onion jam or, if you’re feeling like a baller, giant lobes of lobster and king-crab.

Is it inexpensive? No. Is it a formal steakhouse affair? Far from it. STK pulses with an infectious clubby Las Vegas-style energy. Imagine The Cosmopolitan in Vegas with fewer reflective surfaces.

Then again, subtlety has never been STK’s stock and trade. I’m old enough to remember when its first location caught the club kids’ attention in New York’s Meatpacking District back in 2006.

That first STK offering was designed to be a ritzy rebuttal to the legion of oak-paneled, cigar-stained “man-cave” steakhouses that were carryovers from the last century. No Best of Ol’ Blue Eyes playing in an endless loop. No candlelit lighting schemes designed to recreate the shadowy feel of Plato’s cave. STK seemed to be screaming, “Let there be lights—and socialites.”

Our local Oak Brook location keeps that same spirit alive. The décor is nothing if not theatrical: A giant portrait of a woman, swathed in couture, totes around a giant meat hook with a raw steak on it rather than a handbag. A giant “selfie-me-please” STK sign filled with faux flowers. And an art piece gliding along one wall that’s composed of giant white horns is a not-so-subtle reminder that STK’s major draw is still its beef.

That unbridled energy is exactly what makes STK stand out in a crowded west suburban restaurant landscape. Too often, steakhouse menus blur together. And while you can still order the classics here, you can also sample a full slate of wildcards: Cheesesteak egg rolls served with a whole-grain ranch dip. Lump crab cake dressed to the nines with whole grain mustard cream and chili threads. And our favorite appetizer on the menu: glistening potstickers packed to the folds with thick lumps of wagyu beef and pork. In terms of flavor, its intensity falls somewhere between a freshly fried lumpia egg rolls and a platter of quesabirria tacos.

Oddly enough, those potstickers are far from the most baroque offering on the menu. I’d give the shiniest gold star to STK’s cotton candy cloud dessert, a giant John Watters-approved bouffant of wispy sugar that’s concealing a coulis-drenched butter cake deep down below. I’d also argue that the most unexpectedly impressive entrée is something I would almost never order at a steakhouse: a giant bowl of lobster linguine, which manages to channel both Old World Italy and the coast of Maine in every wispy bite.

It would be easy, as those first Page Six seekers in the Meatpacking District learned, to write off STK as an exercise in irrational exuberance, but STK is no club masquerading as a steakhouse. It’s a serious chophouse with all the niceties you’d expect from a white-tablecloth spot, only it’s not afraid to bust loose a little.

You may be dazzled. You may be overwhelmed. But when you’re shooting a blackberry lemon drop one minute and slicing into an umami missile of a steak the next, you can’t help but walk away feeling energized. It might be bold, it might be brash, it might be expensive, but there’s no way you’re going to forget it.

STK Steakhouse is located at 1225 W 22nd St. in Oak Brook. stksteakhouse.com

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Cocktails

Fade to Blackberry

Clever moniker, but what you’re really enjoying here is a whiskey sour blended with a mint julep. Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 whiskey, muddled mint, blackberries and fresh lime. Peak fruitiness, and a killer foil for any steak on the menu. 

Guava Berry Kiss

An inventive play on your typical cruise-line cocktail, albeit with less sugar and more sophistication: A heavy pour of Still G.I.N. (made by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog) blended with fresh strawberries and Guava Reàl. It delivers smoothie flavors with a smooth, strong kick.