Chef-Approved Tips For Making Restaurant Level Steak At Home

Pulling off a perfect grilled steak at home can be a bit daunting, especially if you're hoping to make it as good as at your favorite restaurant. To find out the best tips for making restaurant-quality steak at home, Daily Meal spoke with an expert: Chef Daniel Ontiveros, the corporate executive chef at Carversteak, a Las Vegas steakhouse.

First things first, don't overdo it on the seasoning. Ontiveros says, "Kosher salt and toasted cracked black pepper are the way to go, let the flavor of the meat speak for itself. Great quality meat should never be covered with other spices or seasonings that could overpower the flavor."

Additionally, there's one easy thing that you can do during the prep stage that makes a huge difference — let the steak rest at room temperature for about 20 minutes before you start cooking it. Ontiveros notes, "This will allow the steak to not be so cold and cook more evenly." This trick is especially true for thick cuts of meat, like many cuts of steak. If steak is cooked straight from the fridge, the center will take longer to cook to temperature than the exterior parts, resulting in an overall uneven cook.

A tomahawk is, undeniably, a show-stopping steak — the kind that you may want to cook up at home to impress dinner guests. But what's the best way to cook a tomahawk steak according to Chef Daniel Ontiveros? He says, "My favorite way to cook a tomahawk at home is on a grill over a nice bed of cherry wood coals (for flavor depth) while sipping an adult beverage."

If you want to try Ontiveros's suggestion, then grab your favorite adult beverage and get your grill ready to go. The best way to grill tomahawk steak requires two stages, one with lower heat and one with higher heat. A lot of the time this means searing the steak on a pan, then popping it in the oven, or, for a reverse sear, doing the opposite. You can use the grill in place of the stovetop for either of these two-stage methods, but you can also rely on just the grill. For this method, you'll grill it on a lower temperature for a long period of time, then finish it off by getting a nice crust over a much higher temperature. Ontiveros says the final step for cooking any kind of steak at home is to "baste your steak with butter after it is done to lock in the moisture."