Philly is full of phony wagyu: This Tokyo transplant is on a mission to bring you better beef.

In recent years, wagyu beef has gone from an obscure, rarefied ingredient to one in the mainstream, touted as an upgrade at upscale and middlebrow restaurants alike, from Barclay Prime to Arby’s. Even Acme sells ground wagyu.

But not all wagyu is equal. There’s true Japanese Wagyu — exceptionally marbled beef from cows raised in pristine environments and graded by rigorous standards — and then there’s a herd of competitors whose steaks and standards aren’t necessarily the same, but who market their beef as wagyu nonetheless.

One Tokyo native is on a mission to reclaim Wagyu with a capital W (the term translates to “Japanese cow”). She wants to educate chefs and consumers about where Wagyu cows come from, what sets this beef apart, and the many ways it can and should be served (hint: not as a honking big steak). She’s also establishing an American pipeline for never-before-seen cuts of Japanese beef, one she hopes will make authentic Wagyu more accessible.

And she’s starting in Philadelphia.

Though Japanese Wagyu and American cattle might resemble each other in a pasture or a pen, they’re different animals on the plate. You can tell at a glance: Where fat in USDA beef ripples through dark-red meat, Wagyu fat is so densely and evenly distributed, the meat is light pink. The Japanese use the term “Shimofuri” (or frosting) to characterize Wagyu’s marbling, which is consistent throughout the cow. Even the leanest cut cooks through in seconds.

Wagyu rearing methods are markedly different than those in the United States, but the difference mostly comes down to genetics — which also factor into the history of Wagyu getting watered down.

The four breeds of Wagyu are descended from Japan’s native cattle. Until the Meiji era, Japan’s cows were exclusively used for labor; meat wasn’t a part of the country’s diet. Their cattle’s predisposition for intramuscular fat — that highly prized marbling — first became celebrated and popularized in the late 1860s by Westerners eating beef in Kobe, a port city. The Japanese partook soon after.

Kobe beef — which became shorthand for Wagyu — was dubbed the best beef in the world by the 1900s. That reputation grew over the decades. A 1956 International News Service story boasted about Japanese cows being “pampered, petted, and massaged.” The cows spend their days grazing on “the sunny slopes of the Japanese countryside” and some are even given beer. “When beddy-bye time comes, old women carefully massage the areas of choice cuts to make them fat and tender.” The result? “[T]he most succulent steak ever carved off a T-bone.”

In 1976, a Colorado company imported four Wagyu bulls to the U.S. with the goal of breeding purebred wagyu. (Full-blooded Wagyu is 100% traceable to Japanese herds; purebred wagyu is 93.75% traceable to Japanese herds.) Though the business floundered, there were 60 purebred Wagyu cattle in the U.S. by 1990, according to Texas Monthly. The ’90s heralded a renewed interest in breeding American wagyu. Accounts vary, but between 1993 and 1999, around 200 Wagyu cattle were shipped to the U.S., some of them pregnant. Many of these cattle were crossbred with Angus and Holstein and other breeds over the years.

Japan cracked down on the export of Wagyu cattle, semen, and embryos in the late ’90s and ’00s, but not in time to stop robust breeding operations from springing up in Australia, New Zealand, and several other countries. Even as Japan exports more Wagyu beef than ever (more than 7,000 tons in 2021), it faces steep competition. Today, there are upward of 100 American farms raising wagyu, some with stronger bloodlines than others.

Japanese Wagyu remains the international gold standard — graded according to its marbling and tagged with a traceability number that reflects date of birth, gender, breed, and more — and it does fetch a premium.

But in the U.S., there’s little if any enforcement around what’s sold as wagyu. The USDA mandates meat labeled wagyu must have either full-blooded or purebred parentage, meaning it can have less than 50% wagyu genetics and still be marketed as wagyu beef. You’ll need to look at the fine print to find the distinction, and even that might not be enough. The ground beef for $8.99 a pound at Acme? It’s labeled 100% wagyu.

Last November, a panoply of elite Philly chefs assembled on the rooftop of the Kimmel Center for an event hosted by Japanese ambassador Mikio Mori. Their preparations were as varied as their backgrounds: Wagyu tallow green curry rice from Kalaya’s Nok Suntaranon, grilled Wagyu with collard green chimichurri from Everybody Eats’ Kurt Evans, lightly torched Wagyu in XO vinaigrette from Vernick Food & Drink’s Greg Vernick, Wagyu nigiri from Royal Sushi and Izakaya’s Jesse Ito, Wagyu suya from StudioKitchen’s Shola Olunloyo, a Wagyu cheesesteak from Angelo’s Pizzeria’s Danny DiGiampietro. Premium sake and whiskey flowed freely. The swanky event was the handiwork of one very determined woman.

Nan Sato is a Tokyo native, a Temple University grad, a wife and mom, a high-powered employment attorney, and a next-level gourmand. She’s lived in the U.S. for years, but her work takes her around the world, frequently to Japan. Whenever she travels, fine dining is on the agenda.

That’s how Wagyu came to capture her interest. “I started going to these places that serve Wagyu, and I realized, ‘Oh, they’re all so different.’ It depends on where you get them, how you prepare them, which cut it is. It’s so versatile.”

Sato went deep down the Wagyu rabbit hole beginning in 2018. She read about the different breeds of cow, the 150-plus Wagyu brands in Japan, the farms’ careful rearing methods, the unique cuts each steer is divided into. She read Japanese white papers about the compositional makeup of its fat, closer to that of olive oil than regular beef fat. She sampled beef from farms by the ocean vs. mountains and tasted the differences in the meat, informed by the grass the cattle graze on as calves and the particular feed they’re given as they age. She wanted to share this breadth and complexity with an American audience.

That’s how Sato conceived of the Wagyu Sommelier, a consulting/education business she launched in 2020. Wine was a point of inspiration: “I feel like Wagyu is really at a place where wine was in the U.S. in the ‘70s, where people would just go to a restaurant and order red wine or white wine and that’s it,” Sato said. “There was no appreciation for different terroir, different producers, different styles.”

Since Sato had no background in food business, she sought out a guide. Gregorio Fierro, a Philly-based chef and consultant, works internationally and handles several imported specialty products. The pair initially met around 2015 through a mutual friend who brought Sato to Fierro’s annual Feast of the Seven — or, in his case, more like 30 — Fishes dinner; he was impressed by her voraciousness and fearlessness. (“She eats like a truck driver,” he said affectionately.)

Wagyu Sommelier’s goal was initially to introduce Americans to the full diversity of true Wagyu, but Fierro’s involvement helped Sato recognize the she could do so not only through education, but also with actual beef as well. And she wanted to bring that beef to everyday date-night spots and chef-owned BYOBs, not just steak houses and Japanese restaurants.

To make it more affordable, Sato did something no one else has done: She established an American supply of secondary and tertiary Wagyu cuts, which have all the desirable characteristics of prime cuts at a deep discount.

This fall, Wagyu Sommelier has partnered with Drexel’s Food and Hospitality Management to offer a six-week certification course that covers Wagyu genetics, history, breeding, and sourcing. Drexel culinary professors will teach cooking methods, while a Japanese butcher will show Wagyu-specific cutting techniques. The class booked up in less than two weeks.

While Sato makes strides on the education front, she’s also working on actually delivering the beef.

Wagyu Sommelier will be supplied by hundreds of small farms in Japan to showcase the variety of Wagyu. In the last year, Sato has visited producers in Hokkaido, Iga, Notto, and Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka. She’s seen firsthand how carefully the cows are treated. “The idea is stress-free meat tastes better,” Sato explained. Many of the farms play classical music in “sparkling clean” cow sheds, where visitors are welcome to take videos.

With Fierro’s help, she’s finalizing agreements with an American distribution partner. Cutters will train this fall, allowing Wagyu Sommelier to start selling preportioned cuts of beef to restaurants and high-end retailers over the holiday season. They’ll sell workaday cuts like rump heart, chuck eye, whole packer brisket, eye round, shank, and fat. Prices will vary by cut and grade, but they plan to sell A5 Wagyu (the highest grade) for just over $40 a pound on average, less than half what prime cuts sell for.

“We try to make this introductory price comparable to prime cuts of U.S. beef so more people will be willing to give it a try,” Sato said.

While chefs and seasoned cooks will have no trouble getting behind those cuts, they’re not the familiar steak house offerings. In other words, the folks ultimately eating this beef won’t be getting a 22-ounce porterhouse or even an 8-ounce filet.

And that’s not how Wagyu is intended to be eaten anyway.

“Fat is good, especially wagyu fat. ... It’s so evenly distributed in the red meat, in the muscle, it makes wagyu tender, sweet, and gives it a lot of flavor, but when you eat it, it’s pretty much 50% fat,” Sato said. “If you eat that much, it’s just not gonna sit well with your stomach.” (Fierro agreed. “Six to eight ounces of that meat and I’m done.”)

Sato has already sold beef to the likes of Branca, who staged several seven-course dinners last winter featuring Wagyu in every dish, and central Pennsylvania chef-owner John Roskowski, who’s had no trouble moving Japanese Wagyu at his Williamsport restaurant/brewery.

Roskowski offers various wagyu options on John Ryan Brewery’s menu, including Pennsylvania-raised wagyu that’s sliced and served in a gyudon rice bowl and ground up and made into patties for a cheeseburger. But since he attended last fall’s Kimmel Center event, he’s ordered every cut he could get from Wagyu Sommelier, offering it as an optional upgrade for several entrees.

The local Wagyu is excellent, but “when you eat it side by side with the Japanese A5, it’s just a completely different level,” Roskowski said. “You don’t have to do anything to it. The farmers did the work for you.”

That’s the reaction Sato is looking for. She’s confident in the beef’s ability to sell itself to cooks at every level: “Once they try it, there’s no going back.”