RAISING THE STEAKS

At MK Steak + Bar, two lifelong friends resurrect the charms of a community steakhouse with standout steaks, seafood and plenty of chic style to spare.

I’ve come to the realization that there’s no such thing as a forgettable cuts. I’ve hacked my way through New York strips that were as tough as luggage handles. I’ve seen rib-eyes so undercooked only a tartare intervention could save them. And once, at an unnamed bistro, I ordered a skirt steak so prosciutto-skinny it could have slipped unnoticed onto a charcuterie board.

Regrettable? Maybe. Underwhelming? Sure. But time is never wasted in a steakhouse because, in the end, the tough experiences make you appreciate the tender ones even more. So when a server recently glided a glistening, gloriously cross-hatched 14-ounce ribeye onto our table at the new MK Steak + Bar in Glen Ellyn, I knew we’d discovered a keeper.

MK doesn’t barter in exotic by-the-ounce imported luxuries. No A5 Wagyu from Japan or Bife Angosto strip loins from Argentina. Owners Jonny Kutrubis and Joe Marino are trying to resurrect an endangered species: the friendly independently owned neighborhood “corner steakhouse.”

Which means they offer a kid’s menu as well as a surprisingly deep wine list. They list sandwiches on one side of the menu (the leek and bone-marrow butter burger is a brilliant white-tablecloth riff on a Culver’s butter burger) and then roasted branzino and miso-glazed sea bass on the other. They want families to drop by on Tuesday nights and couples to celebrate milestone achievements on special occasions.

As a result, they’ve refined a recipe for “double beef” steaks as their primary lure. What’s a double-beef steak, you ask? Steaks that are slicked down with beef tallow, a clever hack that’s worth incorporating into your bag of backyard BBQ tips and tricks.

Jereme McGovern brushes on the beef tallow, then fires his steaks in a blisteringly hot Montague steakhouse broiler. The aforementioned tallow doesn’t just add a second smoky undercurrent—imagine a smoked beef consommé flavor—it also insulates the steak, allowing it to withstand the high heat without developing a charred crust. No juices are lost; they simply lie in wait, waiting for us to release them.

MK’s steaks arrived flanked by a silver condiment cup filled with oven-roasted garlic cloves. There’s nothing else to it. Beef tallow aside, it’s an admittedly “let the beef speak for itself” preparation. But I am happy to report that our steak positively glistened, as if it had been varnished with a topcoat of beef gloss.

When my knife glided into our ribeye, I could hear the faint chorus of hosannas rising in the air us. Beads of moisture purled out from a perfectly pink center. My absolution had arrived.

Kutrubis and Marino, who also own the more casual Rebel Kitchen + Bar in Lombard, have been dreaming about opening up this steakhouse for almost two decades.

The two grew up together playing tee-ball in Elmwood Park. Although they went on to pursue different careers—Kutrubis running restaurants and Marino trading options at the CBOE—every time they crossed paths, they’d toss around the idea of owning a restaurant together.

Whenever Marino, who’s lived in Glen Ellyn for over a decade ago, passed the old Geisha shoe store on the corner of Main Street and Hillside Avenue, he superimposed a restaurant onto the space. One afternoon, he even snapped a few photos of the building and texted them to Jonny. When we finally get around to launching our dream steakhouse, the message said, this is where we should put it.

But when that corner space was converted into a luxury apartment complex, complete with commercial space on the ground floor, it felt like the restaurant gods had thrown them a hanging curveball right over the middle of the plate. So they took their swing.

“The truth of the matter is,” says Joe, “this town needed this type of concept years ago—something that brought a little ‘city cool’ steakhouse to Glen Ellyn but respected what this community is all about.”

Although the 5,600-square foot space was designed by Holly Heffinger of Heffinger Interiors, John and Joe were responsible for making every single design choice. The forest-themed wallpaper. The globe lights. The moody dark-green color scheme. The detailed tilework in the restaurant’s more casual lounge and bar. Every material, every finish, every hue was hand selected by the “MK” boys.

The decision to emphasize that MK was a “bar” as well as a steakhouse was deliberate. Both Kutrubis and Marino were in agreement that they needed to supplement pricier steakhouse standards with the kind of East Coast seafood offering you’d find in Boston or Providence. Offering oysters in the bar and main dining room was priority number one, provided they came dressed with a South Side mignonette spiked with Chicago-style giardiniera. MK’s menu offers the usual seafood suspects—jumbo lump crab cakes, prawns and the like—but I don’t know of many places that serve a derivation of oysters Rockefeller that swaps out the oyster for half of a lobster tail shell filled with a burbly slurry of creamed spinach, and bacon and panko breadcrumbs.

When in doubt, order every lobster offering on the menu. There’s plenty of them, from mini lobster rolls on soft brioche and lobster mac-and-cheese to an impressive handmade lobster-ricotta ravioli set in a Meyer-lemon butter sauce. The latter is served, like the steaks, in a minimalist style but the subtlety of its citrus flavors—not as heavy as a beurre blanc, not as pedestrian as a regular old butter garlic—makes it rich without being overly decadent.

We “surf-and-turfed” our way throughout the menu, ordering mini bone-in filet chops, which you can dip into chimichurri the way you might dunk a chicken tender, while sharing MK’s fresh ahi-tuna and avocado stack with fried wonton chips. In addition to the aforementioned steaks, the sheer generosity of MK’s miso-sea bass will impress bargain hunters, especially considering the forest of maitake mushrooms studded with edamame that is piled a mile high beneath the fish. The only thing more surprising might be the house chocolate cake, which is as rich and towering as Gibsons’ famous mile-high desserts.

In the end, what MK Steak + Bar offers isn’t reinvention. It’s a form of restoration. A return to the well-dressed community steakhouses that were more than just destination restaurants, they became havens for area regulars. Kutrubis and Marino have built the kind of place where a weeknight can feel like a special occasion and a special occasion can feel like home. And if you ever get burned by a lousy steak, this homespun slice of stockyards history offers you the comfort of knowing there’s a tallow-based beauty waiting to restore your faith in ribeyes again.

MK Steak + Bar is located at 400 N Main St. in Glen Ellyn. Call 630-547-2444 or visit mksteakbar.com.

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COCKTAILS

 

PINEAPPLE-INFUSED VODKA
Sounds almost too simple, doesn’t it? Carve some pineapple, pour some three olives vodka over the top and let the two marry. But the subtly sweet infusion makes for a killer steak pairing, a sweeter version of your typical martini.

TEQUILA SOUR
Silky. Loamy. Tart. The Mi Campo silver agave with extra lemon and bitters is the perfect foil for all the lobster on the menu. It’s a citrus kissed wonder.