A decade of meat: Michael Mina’s steakhouse Strip Steak carves up 10 years at Mandalay Bay

Michael followed his dreams — and my advice — and with support from tennis ace and Las Vegas resident Andre Agassi now operates an empire of 25 restaurants in Las Vegas, California, Florida, Arizona, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and as far afield as Dubai.

Coming soon for the James Beard Award-winning chef: a mega-complex of eateries in Hawaii. With Michelin stars, Michael wrote his bestselling self-named cookbook. He also launched the digital media company Cook Taste Eat teaching viewers how to prepare restaurant-quality meals in their own kitchens via daily emailed videos.

Here on the Strip, Michael operates Bardot Brasserie at Aria, Michael Mina at The Bellagio, Pub 1842 at MGM Grand and Strip Steak. We sharpened our steak knives and sliced into a porterhouse to reflect on a decade of meat at Mandalay:

Does it seem like 10 years?

Time just goes by so fast now. About 10 years ago, my kids were 8 and 4, so now they’re 18 and 15.

When you opened Strip Steak at Mandalay Bay 10 years ago, what was the steak dining scene like in Las Vegas? Was steak important? Was it the prime meal?

There were just a couple of good examples of celebrity chef steakhouses that had come to Las Vegas. Their popularity grew to where you have all the chefs doing it. At that time, it was really Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Bellagio with Prime and Tom Colicchio at MGM Grand.

I had looked at the idea of doing a Brown Derby steakhouse there but decided that Nob Hill was the better fit. Right after that, Mandalay Bay became available, so it all worked out really well.

Steak seems to have always been the prime menu motivator in Las Vegas. Is there a reason for that from your viewpoint in the kitchen?

It’s the diversity of the people who come through Las Vegas. In many cities, just putting the word “steak” at the end of a celebrity chef name will get you 50 or 100 more covers a night.

People view steakhouses as a really good option when you’re with a large group where everybody can agree on a steakhouse, as it’s usually an a la carte dining experience where you can tailor your food based on your preferences.

People agree on steakhouses. Eight or 10 people together say, “Let’s go to Michael Mina.” It’s a much more calculated decision than saying, “Let’s go to Strip Steak.”

What is different about the way you prepare, sell and serve meat at Strip Steak?

It was always the driving force of me doing a steakhouse. It’s about product and technique. There was good meat already, but as more and more chefs got involved — the steak and everything else around it — the quality went up.

The driving force was doing slow poaching with butter and using water circulators to hold the temperature to a point where you cook the steaks in their butter bath just under rare. Then that really hot 900- to 1,100-degree fire grill to put the char on it, so you’re slow cooking the meat.

Is the aging of meat the most important part of preparation?

In certain cuts — dry-aged rib eye, dry-aged porterhouse — the age adds a lot because you’re removing moisture from them and adding a lot of flavor. That is very important. Those cuts are a little easier to work with in that the dry-aged meat makes that flavorful. It is a little easier than trying to make a glaze flavorful.

The butter poaching, then fire grilled, a real wood-fire grill, not just a grill with a little smoke on it, but where you’re only cooking with wood. There’s no gas. At Strip Steak, you’re never going to get a steak that’s cooked over gas or in a boiler. It’s only cooked on wood. That’s really the magic about Strip Steak: the butter poaching, then finishing it on the wood grill.

Ten years is a healthy milestone for a restaurant. Good to still be standing?

Oh, yes! Our party Friday is for all the people who helped make it such a substantial restaurant in Las Vegas, a nice get-together with people who have supported the restaurant and also for the staff because they have the longest tenure of any of our restaurants.

When we look at staffing, we always like to look at which venue has the most people with the longest tenure and stay. Strip Steak is No. 1 of the 25 in our company. That’s a big part of why it’s so successful: their knowledge.

Andre Agassi is a partner in Strip Steak.

Absolutely. I don’t want to say this, but I’m going to: It’s definitely the restaurant that Andre eats at the most. It’s obviously the one that Andre has the most interest in because that’s what he loves to cook. He obsesses over cooking steak. He was very curious when we did Strip Steak. He was in the kitchen; he wanted to learn all about it.

I’ve given him pointers, but he does a really good job with steak. He’s very passionate about it. The first time he invited me over for dinner, he wouldn’t let me in the kitchen, and he cooked for me. A little marinade and smoke.

He cooked steaks for 12 of us but made me sit at the table while everyone else was standing and cut into my steak to give my opinion. He’s a very good steak chef! He was there for our opening party and now for our 10th anniversary.

What else is new in your restaurant world?

We just opened Strip Steak in Waikiki, and that’s been a really big success and very fun. We’re going to do a really big project in Waikiki, as well, called The Street with 11 concepts. A very social feel to it, a big bar with a walk-around dining experience. I have eight chef partners in it. I’m only doing a couple myself.

We’re operating the whole thing, then we’ll have guests who are each doing things they are passionate about. We’ll probably serve 3,000 people a day. We’re starting to see a lot of this kind of mix, the market/eatery-type concepts. Mario Batali’s Eataly really drove it, and people have done different takes.

This a little bit different because this is very much about individual storefronts and chefs having their own area and restaurants to do what they want.

Any thoughts about when that might come to Las Vegas?

No. Right now, honestly, I’m very content with what I have in Las Vegas. With our concentration in Las Vegas and San Francisco, I’ve been really fortunate to have two cities that I can call my home city for food. I just really love the mix we have right now in Las Vegas. I am very content with what I have in Las Vegas and very blessed.