What Is A Vegas Strip Steak, And How Does It Stack Up To The New York Strip?

When you think of patented inventions, the lightbulb, the Wright Brothers' "flying machine," and the iPhone may come to mind. But you probably don't imagine that a meat scientist would try to patent a newly discovered cut of steak. Self-styled "Meat Geek" Dr. Antonio Mota was instrumental in the discovery of the now-popular flat iron steak in 2002, and he was determined to dig deep into the unexplored territory of a cow carcass to unearth a beefy jewel that had never before been found. 

By using unconventional butchering methods, Mota figured out how to extract a previously unknown steak from beneath the cow's shoulder blade, which is generally ground for hamburger or apportioned as stew meat. Mota considered naming the cut "pearl steak" but went with the flashier name Vegas strip steak. He partnered with Oklahoma State University to patent the knife procedure, which he perfected to 25 seconds, for cutting the Vegas strip steak, and it was granted in 2016. 

Despite the similarity in names, the New York strip steak is instead cut from the short loin, located just behind the cow's ribs, from which porterhouse steaks and T-bones are also cut. The muscle in this part of the cow isn't exercised much, so the New York strip is tender, and, because of its marbling, has big, beefy flavor. Taste-wise, the Vegas strip steak is often compared to the New York strip, but it's actually more tender, rating slightly below a rib-eye in tenderness.

When the discovery of the Vegas strip steak was announced at the Protein Innovation Summit in April 2012, it became a media darling and was hailed as the beef industry's potential $100 million jackpot. Because the Vegas strip is butchered from the much cheaper chuck, chefs jumped on the bandwagon in promoting the steak as more cost-efficient for restaurants than the fancier cuts. After its time in the spotlight, though, the Vegas strip steak seems to have flamed out, perhaps because any skilled butcher — without needing the patent — would know how to cut it, or maybe the realization sunk in that it's really nothing more than an extra-well-trimmed flat iron steak. Whatever the true reason, today the Vegas strip steak is much harder to source than a New York strip, but you can order them from specialty meat purveyors. 

It's a smallish steak — weighing between .5 to .75 pounds — so it's not really a steak to share, and you should plan on one steak per person. The Vegas strip should be prepared in the same way you would cook filet mignon by searing it quickly and letting the steak rest to reabsorb its juices. The steak resembles a flat iron steak but thinner with its grain running lengthwise, and to ensure a butter-like tenderness, it should be cut perpendicularly, against the grain as you would a flank steak.