Golfing Gourmet: Meat Me at Boa

by Vic Williams and Darin Bunch

Face it, fortysomethings and above: Your classic steakhouse ethos is being supplanted by … by … something else. The old-school naugahyde cool and hardwood hip of say, Gallagher’s on 52nd Street in New York City — the definition of the great American meat-and-potato emporium — isn’t going anywhere soon, but it isn’t at the wheel of that big ol’ steer-horned Cadillac any longer, either. In fact, the Caddy is out to pasture, and there’s a younger, just as cool, impossibly hipper dude chewing up the charbroiled macadam these days. In a sleek $70K Lexus or Beamer, no less.

In L.A. and Vegas, his name is Boa. Or should be. He’s got a lead foot, a flair for spectacular maneuvers and only one destination in mind — the medium-rare heart of a steak-loving society. And he’s coming at us from three different directions: The Strip, Sunset Boulevard and chic seaside Santa Monica.

Boa Steakhouse is the Gallagher’s of the 21st century, the trendsetter for all of steakdom in the foreseeable future, at least on the West Coast, crossing every diner’s path with the carnivorous roar of a mighty appetite and the suave flash of a red-hot Hollywood star, many of whom seek out his delicious companionship when the pangs strike. Gallagher’s has fed its share of megawatt patrons over the decades, too — hundreds of them since it opened in 1927, from Depression-era Broadway singers to today’s film favorites — but nowadays Boa sets the beat with late-night (sometimes after-hours) reservations for the likes of George Clooney, Jamie Foxx, Brad Pitt, Kevin Dillon, Courteney Cox (for whom Boa’s staff keeps a secret stash of her dad’s special homemade steak sauce on the premises) and, most recently, former president Bill Clinton. An army of young, stylin’ steak fans are following their lead with little resistance to dropping a Ulysses S. Grant on a filet or rib eye or slab of prime rib. At Boa, that’s a bargain. The food is that good, the atmosphere that cutting-edge, the service that spot-on. Which is why the Golfing Gourmet is inspired to call it the Best Steak Dinner He’s Ever Had. And he — make that we — have been lucky enough to have it more than once, in two of Boa’s three lairs.

Let’s start at the Grafton Hotel in West Hollywood, where Boa packs ’em into a bandbox dining room just off the lobby, night after night. The raw-boned blare of the place spills out onto the sidewalk, letting you know there’s less chance of a quiet, romantic soiree than most of us have of stringing three birds on the links. And that’s OK, because that’s one trait Boa shares with Gallagher’s — it’s gregarious and go-getting in attitude. If you want highfalutin, upturned-nose, hear-the-glasses-clink fare, hit the Four Seasons.

“We all grew up loving to go to steakhouses, and the ones our parents would take us to — Morton’s, The Palm, Smith & Wollensky, Ruth’s Chris — these are not the kind of places I think the younger generation wants to make their own,” says Lee Maen, one of three young entrepreneurs whose company, Los Angeles-based Innovative Dining Group, also owns award-winning West Coast eateries Sushi Roku (which also has an outlet in Vegas, as well as Pasadena and Hollywood) and Katana.

“So we tried to come up with a steakhouse for the next generation; we took the basic menu of steak, potatoes, sides, Caesar salad, shellfish and the like, and put our own twist on the items — a better quality dish, a more unique flavor profile, and put them in an environment we’d like to hang out in, with great design, music and younger staff. We were one of the first of this new trend; now there’s a lot of people coming out with a similar concept.”

Walk through the front door and you’ll feel the Boa ethos really get down to business: This ain’t just another hotel restaurant, but a pure example of hyper-modern, hard-edged, GenY-friendly fun. Our waiter, Lance — best friend to PGA Tour player and wine expert Duffy Waldorf, explains. “Duffy doesn’t think golf should be stuffy, and we don’t think our restaurant should be stuffy.”

Waldorf is no stranger to Boa’s environs; he and Lance attended nearby UCLA together and the sartorially psychedelic pro swings by for a steak and grape fix whenever he’s in town — during the Nissan Open each February, for instance. His loud Hawaiian shirts should fit right in with interior designer Mandi Rafaty’s semi-tropical décor, in which she employs the primary colors of the young and ambitious set — muted reds and golds with brighter-colored accents in hanging lamps and fixtures. Wood-grained tables are unclothed in favor of cross-hatched room dividers and placemats, white tableware and cream-colored napkins; booths are outfitted with low-slung leather seats that lend to table-to-table conversation. The Sunset site’s coziness (it seats fewer than 60, plus a few in the adjoining black-bedecked lounge) makes for a raucous atmosphere, while the Santa Monica and Vegas outposts are much larger, though Rafaty’s crew was careful to break them up into more palatable pieces.

And while each location offers a unique environment, all three Boa incarnations boast menus that tread heavily on classic turf — steaks, double-cut chops and such — but also dive deep into familiar surf. At Boa’s West Hollywood, Chef de Cuisine Craig Russell sticks with the basics, but again, they’re not, as Maen states, “drowning in butter,” but allowed to stand on their own fresh flavor foundation. You’ll find jumbo prawns, Hawaiian swordfish, ahi tuna, Atlantic salmon, Maine lobster and a fish of the day, roasted or grilled with a lemon-garlic-caper butter or Morroccan charmoulah sauce, or blackened.

We put ourselves into Lance’s capable hands, and so began the killer culinary parade. After appetizers of almost obscenely tender American “Wagyu” Kobe beef slices and dainty-but-powerful Bluepoint oysters, he whipped up a stellar tableside Caesar with no cut corners — egg, garlic, anchovies, Tabasco and lemon were all present and accounted for, and our taste buds were the better for it. The “BLT” salad of applewood smoked bacon, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, avocado and creamy bacon dressing almost swayed us, however. And next time we’ll give the crab cakes or prime beef chili a whirl.

Then came the main event — a 40-day dry-aged New York with bleu cheese crust and cabernet reduction sauce, medium-rare, well-marbled and ungodly flavorful. “We go with a prime dry-aged product that we’re constantly comparing with other products to make sure it’s the best,” Maen says. “When we first set out to be a steakhouse, we wanted to be at least as good as the best in L.A. For what we like, that was The Grill in Beverly Hills. And we think we’ve surpassed that. Now we’ve got to be the actual best steak in L.A.”

We hooked up our dryish, beautifully aged slab of steak with “truffled nachos” — home-fried potato chips with goat cheese melted with truffle oil — creamed spinach (back in the day before the e coli scare) and a mouth-watering mac ’n’ cheese that you only wish mom could make. A bone-in rib-eye, T-bone, New Zealand rack of lamb, shrimp-stuffed coulotte steak, flat iron steak and free range chicken breast fill out the turf side.

And it wasn’t long before the dishes we’d missed lured us back to Boa, this time to the spacious restaurant atop the famed Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. It was here where our server, Winnie, further nurtured our appreciation for Boa’s true signature — rubs, crusts and sauces that heighten the juicy flavor of the “bone-in” Kansas City filet mignon. Diners can’t go wrong with the Cabernet or Chimichurri sauces or assortment of mustards, but the Golfing Gourmet promises that the foie gras butter is worth every penny of the $4 extra it’ll run you. And if you pass on it based on price alone, you’re simply missing the point of eating at Boa in the first place.

In contrast to the quite cozy West Hollywood spot, the Las Vegas location has that big casino-restaurant vibe, so don’t hesitate to request a table or comfortable booth with Sin City’s neon paradise in full frame outside the large windows looking down The Strip. Or, when the weather is right (not too hot in the summer, not too cold in the winter), balcony seating can make you feel like a Vegas headliner, starring in your own culinary show high above the wandering masses on the Boulevard below.

Back in West Hollywood, Lance’s three dessert choices sent us into another dimension. Which was more diabolical we can’t say: the chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce; s’more pie of chocolate cake, ice cream, graham cracker crust and marshmallow sauce; or a simply incredible peanut butter mousse topped with bananas in a chocolate crust. We’re lucky we made it back out into the Sunset swirl alive.

Yep, Boa’s got all other L.A. and Las Vegas steakhouses beat. It’s all so familiar, but the sleek surroundings and youthful vibe, plus the straightforward, stripped-down way it’s all prepared and presented, puts a sweet stranglehold on the senses … and the Golfing Gourmet on Cloud Nine.

“We try to give people an escape, an experience,” Maen says. “Food is No. 1 of course, but it’s about being in a place that treats you with a great level of hospitality, music you may have never heard but you love, and a mixed crowd. It’s not just celebrities. You could be sitting next to the president of a dotcom or Hollywood agency, or a secretary. We treat everyone the same way — you leave other parts of your life for a couple of hours.” FG

www.boasteak.com