With big chops for big bucks, Fiore Rosso and Bardea Steak reimagine the luxury steakhouse

Have you followed the skyrocketing price of beef? The current surge began with shortages following temporary shutdowns of processing plants early in the pandemic. Then came the successive jolts of rising costs of fuel and grain for feed, impacted by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Now, severe drought in the western United States has shriveled pastures and spurred ranchers to reduce their herds and tighten supply by as much as 20%.

Most cautious restaurateurs, I imagine, faced with wholesale price hikes of up to 40% for beef over pre-pandemic costs, are not likely saying to themselves, “Let’s open a steak restaurant!”

But conventional wisdom has rarely been a guiding force for chef Marc Vetri. He and partner Jeff Benjamin had an irresistible real estate opportunity for their first project on the Main Line, and they’ve delivered the bistecca luxury of an Italian grill at Fiore Rosso in Bryn Mawr.

Likewise, the ambitious team behind Bardea Food & Drink in Wilmington was already “too far along to turn back” on the construction of Bardea Steak, says Scott Stein, whose partner, chef Antimo DiMeo, had plunged deep into researching beef and cutting-edge techniques to intensify flavors. Their sprawling “meat kingdom” offers no fewer than five different breeds of steer, as well as dishes with elk, ostrich, and kangaroo that frequently arrives with pyrotechnical fanfare — billowing smoke, tubes of bubbling lychee cream — that assure tableside drama.

Not surprisingly, the price tags at both restaurants might make you gasp — hitting $168 for the 40 oz. porterhouse intended for four at Fiore Rosso, and far more than that for some of the chops on display in the dry-aging cases at Bardea Steak. The focus on large-format cuts, however, is meant to encourage sharing, ultimately serving smaller portions of better meat per person than the individual steaks most American diners are accustomed to. Check averages at both ultimately range from $110 to $120 per person.

It’s all part of their efforts to redefine the modern steakhouse experience, along with the creative use of less-expensive cuts (like zabuton or rib lifter) and broader menus to offer more balanced meals featuring seasonal vegetables and options that hold more intrigue than the typical wedge salad and baked potato. Both places have been packed with an eager audience. But stylistically, these two restaurants — one a study in polished minimalism, the other an irrepressible exercise in experimentation and showmanship — could not be more different.

The element of surprise is the understated simplicity of Fiore Rosso. There’s hardly even a sign outside its front door at the back of its strip-mall parking lot, where the former Tredici has been transformed into an open 130-seater with tall ceilings (and predictable noise). It could be mistaken for a banquet hall if not for the Picasso and Miró on loan from Vetri’s partners hanging on the walls.

You’ll know it’s a Vetri restaurant immediately from the museum-quality Berkel slicer on a pedestal near the open kitchen where longtime Osteria veteran chef Jesse Grossman cranks the flywheel to shear aged prosciutto and mortadella to be draped with creamy ricotta over fresh focaccia. Grossman, also an alum of Vernick’s hearth, can also be seen basting molten dry-aged beef fat with a brush of bundled herbs over steaks roasting on the 6-foot-long oak and charcoal-fueled grill, which kisses nearly every other item on the menu.

The main event, of course, is four cuts of steak that, with just salt and live fire, produced consistently excellent results, from the mineral complexity of the dry-aged Double R Ranch ribeye ($150, 32 oz.) to the Creekstone bistecca Fiorentina, whose T-bone adds more flavor to its tenderloin side than most filet mignons can ever dream of. The Snake River Wagyu rib cap is smaller than most, at just 8 oz. for $85. But it brings such an intense richness you don’t need much, and I prefer its firmer bite to so many other, gratuitously fatty cuts of Wagyu.

Where Fiore Rosso distinguishes itself most is in the rest of the menu, from the conserva of separately cooked shrimp, squid, and mussels graced with lemon oil, almond butter, and a puffy round of fried dough, to stuffed artichokes with stracciatella and marrow-glossed corn. The seemingly simple beef tartare, with the subtle accent of firm heart meat in the blend and an umami-boost of colaturra, was also outstanding.

The handful of pastas were unremarkable, given the Vetri pedigree, though the seafood mousse-stuffed paccheri offered a clever reference to common steakhouse lobster bisque, served here as sauce instead of soup. I would have loved the beef trim Bolognese had the kitchen been more generous with the noodles. My biggest disappointment was the grilled pastrami-spice sweetbreads, a specialty I’ve coveted in Argentine steakhouses that here was chewy and burnt.

One sip of my stiff Tuscan Manhattan, or the brawny Valle Reale Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from the all-Italian wine list (who needs Cali cabs?), and I was ready to move on to this menu’s many other virtues — a plump take on veal Milanese with tonnato sauce; a vibrant tuna crudo with green tomato acqua pazza. And especially pastry chef Michal Shelkowitz’s desserts. Her butterscotch budino is so good it’s basically cheating. But I was enchanted by the triple-layered spumoni made from fresh strawberry, pistachio, and chocolate gelati. Wrapped in a toasty band of fluted meringue, it was simultaneously festive, classic, and fresh. When updating a genre as stuck in convention as the steakhouse, that’s a promising place to start.

Fiore Rosso, 915 Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 484-380-2059; fiorerossophl.com

I was so upset after my first meal, I almost didn’t return to Bardea Steak. I had broken my own rule to not visit a new restaurant before it was a month old — and literally paid the price.

The restaurant’s marquee splurge, a dry-aged bistecca Fiorentina cut from the Texas descendants of legendary Tuscan Chianina cattle, is priced by the ounce since the kitchen cuts its chops to order and sizes vary. “It’s usually around $200 and enough for four,” our server said, taking pity on my obvious struggle to multiply $6 an ounce in my head. (Why should customers have to do this, anyway?) But when the bill arrived, I audibly gulped with horror that I had been given for an extra large 50-ouncer with no advanced warning for... $300!?

I would have appreciated a double-check from our otherwise fine server before I committed to that XL hunk of cow — a protocol oversight Stein says they’ve since corrected. But I would have appreciated it even more if the ever-experimental DiMeo had finished his R&D prior to opening. His fermentation obsession with the potent Japanese rice mold koji destroyed our steak with an overly intense marinade that rendered it incredibly salty and tenderized to the point that the already supple filet side of the porterhouse had softened to the texture of beef paste.

The marination has since been adjusted, DiMeo says, to about one-sixth of the time used on mine. But come on, chef! You can’t do test-runs at this level. Just because you can play with koji, doesn’t mean you always should. (A koji-aged ribeye at Umami Steak and Sushi off Washington Square was even worse with saltiness and texture, making me now a charter member of the #NeverKojiSteak club).

Thankfully, not all these meats are fermented in koji. You can order a Piedmontese bone-in ribeye, an Aberdeen Angus strip that descends from the original Scottish breed, fat-laced Australian Wagyu grilled tableside over the coals with harissa ssamjang, or the deeply savory flanken of Chianina grilled Korean barbecue style. The most fascinating reflection of DiMeo’s beef explorations is the “Butcher’s Feast” showcasing less common cuts from five different breeds, including a buttery Wagyu flat-iron, a tender Piedmontese zabuton, and my two favorites, a Holstein picanha and the deeply complex Vaca Vieja, a Spanish breed matured years beyond when most cattle are slaughtered.

I can’t be blamed for being excited to check out the latest project from one of our most creative and artistic chefs. And a much improved visit several weeks later would validate my expectation for Bardea Steak to potentially become this region’s ultimate meat palace. The space designed by Stokes Architecture + Design is gorgeous, with white brick walls over walnut-colored floors and sumptuous leather banquettes set beneath the gaze of a sculpted Chianina cow. The wine list is deep and premium. The cocktails are complex and inventive yet balanced — and sometimes presented with a bang, like the sparkler that flared atop my Fine Lines, offering glimpse of the razzle-dazzle to come.

DiMeo’s creativity is showcased in his vibrant and inventive uses for the whole cow: in the oxtail barbacoa tucked inside smoked plantain tamales; in the veal skirt steak tartare splashed with clarified cacciatore broth; in raw teres major shaved into meaty noodle threads dressed with beef garum vinaigrette, pistachio butter, and trout roe served beneath a dome of smoke. Even the croissants here are made with a special Guernsey butter.

But the menu is also too vast — a repertoire 50 items long, each one elaborately composed, not even counting the separate menu for the steaks. Some are spectacular, like the 96-layer laminated bread cube, the goat birria, or the wild boar-and-croissant riff on a mini-Cubano sandwich. By the time I began sampling the elk kebabs, whole poussin piccata, turducken croquettes, egg-filled khachapuri, and sweet Danish-like m’hanncha pastry, it was clear this menu had rolled off the rails in need of an editor.

If DiMeo narrows his concept and restrains himself from adding a half dozen flourishes to every plate, the possibilities for this innovative restaurant are unlimited. If nothing else, he can focus on perfecting his novel approaches to the precious chops before putting them on the menu. After a $300 mis-steak, there aren’t many diners who’d give this potentially thrilling meat kingdom the second chance it deserves.

Bardea Steak, 608 N. Market St., Wilmington, 302-550-9600; bardeasteak.com