Bourbon Steak

Bourbon Steak is the steakhouse concept of James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Mina, who built his culinary reputation at Aqua in San Francisco and has since developed a restaurant group with locations across the country. The Georgetown restaurant is located within the Four Seasons Hotel at 2800 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, which places it at the intersection of the most prestigious hotel address in the neighborhood and one of the country’s more technically accomplished steakhouse operators.

The defining technique at Bourbon Steak is the preparation method for the beef: before the steak reaches the grill, it is poached in clarified butter. This step, which Mina developed as a signature technique, cooks the interior of the steak gently in fat before the high-heat finish of the grill develops the crust. The result is a steak whose interior temperature is more even from edge to center than the grill-only method produces and whose fat has been enriched by the butter-poaching step. This is not a technique that most steakhouses employ; it requires the additional preparation time and the quantities of clarified butter that the commercial production involves, and it produces a measurably different result from the direct-grill method.

The beef selection covers the prime and dry-aged categories that define the high-end American steakhouse. Dry-aged beef, which is held for weeks or months in controlled humidity at specific temperatures, loses moisture and develops enzymatic breakdown of the muscle fibers that intensifies the flavor and softens the texture. The result is a more concentrated beef flavor and a tenderness that wet-aged beef, which is the method used in most restaurant supply chains, does not achieve.

The Four Seasons location provides the room quality, service standards, and wine program depth that Bourbon Steak’s positioning requires. The Pennsylvania Avenue address puts the steakhouse at the western end of Georgetown’s commercial district, adjacent to the hotel lobby.

Reservations are strongly recommended. Hours run from dinner service six nights, with earlier opening on Friday and Saturday. The Four Seasons Hotel at 2800 Pennsylvania Avenue NW has been the Georgetown hotel address since its opening in 1979, when it established the standard that Washington hotel dining has been measured against. The hotel’s position adjacent to Rock Creek Park and at the western end of Georgetown’s commercial district gives Bourbon Steak access to the Pennsylvania Avenue traffic that connects Georgetown to the West End and the K Street professional corridor. For the Washington professional who wants to entertain a client at the highest level that Georgetown can offer, the Bourbon Steak and Four Seasons combination provides the room, the service, and the kitchen that the occasion requires. The wine list, which befits a hotel steakhouse of this category, covers the American cult Cabernets, the California cult Chardonnays, and the Bordeaux and Burgundy selections that fine dining wine service requires. Jacket preferred.