Meat Bar: The Grill That Anchors Kane Concourse

The arais lands before anything has been decided: a pita split and packed with minced lamb, capers and mint, then pressed on the grill until the bread blisters and the fat works its way through. It is four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, the hour Meat Bar opens, and Kane Concourse outside is still quiet, two landscaped blocks of jewelers and law offices with a Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture sitting on the median. Inside, the room is already taking bookings. White tables, white chairs, a white bar down one side, lighting warmed just enough to flatter a plate of raw beef. By six the sidewalk tables are gone. Bay Harbor Islands is two islands and one short commercial strip, and this is the address that strip books when the occasion matters.

The beef list is where Chef Shimi Alon states his terms. Five standing cuts, then a dry aged ladder sold by the ounce that climbs in twenty five dollar steps from one hundred dollars to two hundred and fifty, and above all of it a tomahawk priced for four people with a reason to celebrate. The bone in ribeye is the house cut and the one to take if you came for steak: thick, heavily marbled, worked over the coals until the fat cap crackles while the meat underneath stays slack. The butcher's cut and the reserve cut sit just below it. Filet mignon is there for people who want tenderness over flavor, and the kitchen does not pretend otherwise.