The Cut is not above the rest

In the world of fashionable gastronomy, there is little appetite for US-inspired steakhouses.

Faux-clubby: inside The Cut Steakhouse. Picture: Jesse Marlow

A percentage of readers just turned the page. In the world of fashionable gastronomy - the folk who read restaurant reviews - there is little appetite for places like The Cut, US-inspired steakhouses with their “appetizers” and “chopped salads”, their faux-clubby interiors and predictable menus.

Yet it’s exactly these attributes - anonymity, cultural neutrality - that make these restaurants so popular. Business lunch, treat with the in-laws? Easy solution.

Those guys with their saltbush, fermented purslane and foraged mollusc powder can only dream of doing the numbers that these sort of restaurants manage every day.

It’s why private equity funds invest in them: universal appeal. The Cut is, in fact, part of a group ultimately owned by ... a private equity fund.

On the upper floor of the magnificent Victorian building that was previously Stokehouse, Comme and Mietta’s, it recently launched with sibling Fratelli Fresh on the ground level, a duplex of Sydney brands crept south. Big investment.

Interior design dollars have gone through this building like dysentery over the past 10 years as the business model changed. The latest incarnation is ... well, nothing like its predecessors. Think brass and marble, Chesterfields and mirrors, carpets and dark panelling, a sort of instant, ersatz Melbourne Club.

Done well, your upmarket steakhouse can be a fine thing, but steak, chips, salad and proper condiments is a good example of a simple meal that’s actually really simple to stuff up. As The Cut amply demonstrates. From gormless service to Lilliputian cutlery, dull crockery and glassware to meagre, ungenerous serves of bread, there’s not a lot to recommend this new restaurant.

There are three main reasons I’d go to a steakhouse: One, the restaurant serves meat I can’t buy, with the ageing done in-house. The 250g Cape Grim rump cap - $48 with condiments and nothing else - is a decent bit of beef, but not overwhelmingly splendid. Not a lot of juice, flavour or interesting texture, and putting it on a cold plate (which happens more than once) does it no favours.

Two: the restaurant can cook in a way I can’t. This steak has minimal salty, charry crust. It doesn’t suggest cooking over charcoal or in an intense, US-style broiler. Meh.

Three: good potato chips make everyone happy and a steak sing, and are too messy to bother with at home. The Cut’s are soft-shelled and tepid, a wasted $10 in their brass presentation cup.

Other dishes? Potato wafers filled with “aged albacore tuna” are bland beyond bland, and served on a doily, with no obvious sense of irony. The flathead (pictured) is overcooked. A curious dish of pickled artichoke hearts filled with a spiced pork farce is fine. And we’d all be happy to eat a dish combining good grilled calamari, mussels and a garnish of broccoli shavings pan-fried with chilli-spiked nduja.

It’s a weird-looking thing, but tasty.

Flathead at The Cut Steakhouse in Melbourne. Picture: Jesse Marlow

In the end, however, we’re here for the steak, right? And it’s not up to snuff. So much so, I don’t want to attempt dessert. The whole absence of effort, the disconnect between kitchen and table, leaves me uninspired. We head downstairs to the confected Italia of Fratelli for a glass of Averna liqueur and a single serve of their doughnut-like zeppole di patate. It’s fine. And Averna will always be Averna.

Unless, of course, they’re bought out by a private equity fund.