Review: Smoque Steak, a different kind of steak in Chicago

When you make it over to Smoque Steak, a modern neighborhood steakhouse in Avondale by the owners of Smoque BBQ, you’ll probably see Barry Sorkin.

He’s the most familiar face from the barbecue house, which has somehow been open for almost 17 years. Even though he’s swapped a T-shirt for a button down shirt at the new place, it’s untucked, and that boyish face is still a little bit scruffy.

After a host shows you to your table, your server will ask if you know about their steaks. It’s not an obvious question. Essentially, they’re cooked in an unusual three-step process with smoke, sous vide and searing in cast iron with butter. You need to know this, so you know what to expect — because what you’ll get is a different kind of steak.

The origin story behind the steakhouse started with an accidental box of steaks. They were delivered in error to the barbecue house. With smokers, but no grills, the process began. It’s not proprietary, but it is unique.

Sorkin likes to say that’s when he and his partners realized they needed a different kind of steakhouse.

“A little bit more designed around everyday, as opposed to special occasions,” he said. “And expense accounts.”

It wasn’t a different kind of steakhouse they got; it was a different kind of Smoque.

Sorkin and his Smoque BBQ partners Mike McDermott, Al Sherman and Chris Hendrickson brought in chef Dylan Lipe, previously at Sweet Baby Ray’s and Blackwood BBQ, as a partner for Smoque Steak.

“I think it was filling a void,” Lipe said. “We’ve always had the extravagant leather and velvet steakhouse, or the 1970s wagon wheel thing, but there was just no middle in there.”

What’s also different from a downtown steakhouse are your fellow diners. Yes, there was an older white male foursome wearing baseball caps straight out of “Succession,” but a younger Black couple sporting statement sneakers, and a Spanish-speaking family dressed for a celebratory occasion too.

We were all there for the steak. There are currently five cuts available, from a ribeye to what’s called a bistro steak. But the chef’s must-order menu items surprised both Sorkin and me.

“If I’ve got to make a singular impression, it’s going to be a perfect pink filet with the garlic veal demi,” said Lipe. Their perfect pink is medium-rare, and the garlic veal demi-glace is one of the seven optional toppers. “With broccolini and mushrooms, that’s the meal.”

What makes his choice of a filet mignon so surprising is precisely why it’s so prized. It’s literally cute, as well as a lean and tender medallion. Not typically attributes preferred by meat chefs.

My must-order? Steak frites toujours. Here it’s a skirt steak, spread with gems of red chimichurri, plus a perfect golden tangle of hand-cut fries. The long, flat surface of the steak holds the smoke beautifully as the memory of a fire.

The bistro steak, however, may rival both our affections, especially priced somehow at only $19. It’s a chuck tender, somewhat long and cylindrical, not to be confused with a traditional bone-in chuck steak.

“The muscle name is the teres major,” Sorkin said. He recently talked to two tables one night about the steak. The first had finished eating. “They were curious about this steak that they had never heard of before that seemed bizarrely inexpensive.”

So he just had the kitchen cook one up.

“As a business owner, it’s probably the dumbest thing I could have done,” he said, laughing. “Because these guys tasted it and they were like, ‘Oh my god, that’s great!’ And they had just finished their ribeyes. I think I may have downsold them for the next visit, which is fine. We’ve never been about trying to extract every last dollar from people.”

That’s kind of what their whole concept has been about.

“I think with the possible exception of the skirt steak, I think it eats so far above its price point,” he added.

The other table had a very different opinion. They told him very directly that the reason they didn’t order it was because it was too cheap.

Which is a shame, but understandable.

All of the steaks are dry-brined, smoked with oak for 30 minutes, cooked sous vide — for an hour or two for ribeyes — and then seared.

But there’s so much more to the menu.

Steak tartare radiates with lustrous hand-cut filet, studded by crisp aromatic flashes of shallots, capers and cornichons, topped by a velvety confit egg yolk, ringed around with luminous housemade potato chips.

Bone marrow is served quivering in split and roasted marrow bones over a veal demi-glace and confit garlic emulsion, which reveals impeccable saucier skills.

Lobster grits offer a pristine sweet petite butter-poached tail swimming in creamy grits with a hint of heat from roasted shishito peppers.

The Smoqued Pineapple cocktail also features a hint of heat from Ancho Reyes chile liqueur. And yes, smoke, from La Luna mezcal as well as a Smoking Gun, invented by PolyScience in Niles.

General manager Rob Brouse developed the cocktail program, having previously worked as a bartender at Gibsons Italia and Terra & Vine.

A blackberry basil smash packs a summer vacation’s worth of berries in a refreshingly balanced drink. The nonalcoholic blackberry smash, though, is the one you’ll want any season, with an herbal Seedlip Garden 108 instead of vodka.

Sorkin and Lipe split dessert duty with nods to steakhouse classics and their own barbecue roots.

A Chicago-style cheesecake tops a fluffy, puffy slice with berries, macerated in white wine, plus a touch of lemon curd. The bananas Foster bread pudding soaks in a pool of dark caramel Foster sauce that’s delicious, but strongly spiked with rum, unlike its sober sibling at Smoque BBQ.

A butterscotch pot de crème with caramel and cacao nib-garnished shortbread cookies seems ambitious, but was muted in flavor. The drunken chocolate cake, inspired by Lipe’s love of tres leches cake, is thoughtful and generous, but proves the restaurant desperately needs a pastry chef to further their goals to become a different kind of steakhouse.

Their barbecue roots belie the creative technique that’s just emerging at Smoque Steak.

The ribeye steak is cooked by sous vide for twice as long as the other steaks. It’s also double the size at 16 ounces, except for the strip, which weighs in at 14 ounces.

When you slice through ribeye, the marbling is remarkable. Mom Chu said it looked just like the snow flower fat beef she’s seen on her favorite Chinese cooking shows. That’s typically wagyu sliced thin for hot pot.

While the ribeye was tender, I’m not sure sous vide cooking is best for the steak I had or the cut in general. It’s a matter of temperature and texture, too temperate and too soft for my taste. But that may be exactly why some might love it, for tenderness above all.

Then there’s the fat. I love the ribeye cap and the wobbly fat around it, but here, it is firm like butter. When charred, it’s an amazing, unpredictable bite, but not necessarily what anyone else wants from a restaurant steak.

“There’s no question that our method produces a different product than a traditional steak and there are some trade-offs,” Sorkin said. “Some of the fat does not render in the same way in a sous vide method as it does cooking it in a more of a blast furnace environment. For us, it’s the tenderness of the meat, the smoke flavor and a sear that we think gives it a nice golden brown exterior. But it’s not going to be the same kind of char if you’re looking for in that burnt fat exterior that is delicious.”

There are many ways to cook a steak. And salmon. As a former fishing lodge chef in Alaska, I was shocked by Smoque’s silky yet substantial skinless farmed Canadian salmon that’s cooked the same as the steaks, but finished with a lovely lemon scallion butter.

You can order your steaks hard-seared, and even sliced, which was how they originally planned to serve them to better share. But that changed, along with plans to offer hybrid service. Now it’s full service with an excellent team overseeing the sleek space, and Sorkin or McDermott, his longtime Smoque partner, talking to every table like a new-school steakhouse.

So a final note: After my visits, Smoque Steak added flame-searing, but only for the ribeye and strip steaks. They made the change based on early feedback from me and other diners (while as a critic, I do my best to dine anonymously, I connect with restaurants afterward for interviews and follow-up questions.).

No matter; they haven’t even opened the butcher counter yet. Or started lunch or brunch, though they’re already working on an Italian beef sandwich. And that means we have lots of everydays and special occasions to come.

Smoque Steak

3310 N. Elston Ave.

773-219-1775

smoquesteak.com

Open: Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday, 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.

Prices: Appetizers $14-$23, steaks $19-$53, sides $9-$12, desserts $8-$15, cocktails $15-$18

Noise: Conversation-friendly

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Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible, with restrooms on single level

Tribune rating: Excellent, 3 stars

Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.

lchu@chicagotribune.com

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article stated the ribeye and strip steaks could be flame-seared as an option. It is now the default way those steaks are prepared.

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