Cutting steaks

Cutting your steak the right way: it’s crucial for the perfect mouthfeel. Our chef Ruben Meijboom explains in the video below why slicing steak correctly is so important and immediately shows the differences between meat with a fine grain (such as tournedos) and meat with a coarse grain (bavette).

Want to read it again afterward? No problem—we’ve clearly written it out for you below the video.

How to cut steak: what’s the right way?

Cutting your steak properly is so important for the right texture and mouthfeel. A tender steak that’s perfectly cooked and has rested nicely for 10 minutes can still turn into something resembling shoe leather if it’s sliced incorrectly. So yes, cutting steak matters—but with coarser cuts like bavette, it’s absolutely crucial. Slice bavette the wrong way, and you’ll be chewing forever. Such a waste.

Does cutting meat really make that much of a difference to the final result? Absolutely. You can literally ruin a perfect steak just by slicing it wrong. And that’s a shame—because cutting bavette correctly isn’t difficult. You just need to know how.

Cutting against the grain

Meat consists of muscle tissue, and the “grain” refers to the muscle fibers. When slicing your steak, the first thing you need to do is look closely at the direction of those fibers. Place your meat on a wooden cutting board and examine the grain. If the fibers run horizontally from left to right, you should cut straight across them—so vertically. In other words, you cut against the grain, not along it.

Never cut with the grain, as this results in a steak that’s tough and difficult to chew—especially when preparing a flavorful but coarser cut like bavette. With something like tournedos, the grain is so fine that the difference is less noticeable, but still: always cut against the grain.

It may sound logical, but cutting meat incorrectly is one of the most common—and most fatal—mistakes when preparing a great steak.