Hanger Steak

For most of the 20th century, if you wanted a hanger steak in New York City you had to know a butcher. Not know of one — know one. The butchers of the meatpacking district kept this cut off the counter entirely, saving it for themselves and the people they liked. One per cow, intense flavor, and nobody outside the trade knew it existed. They called it the butcher's steak and they meant it as a private joke.

The secret got out eventually. Chefs started asking questions, restaurant menus started using the French name — onglet — and the price followed accordingly. What was once a perk of the trade is now one of the most sought after cuts we carry.

It hangs from the diaphragm near the kidney, which is where the flavor comes from — deep, iron-rich, and unmistakably beefy in a way that a ribeye, for all its fat and tenderness, simply cannot replicate. It is not the most tender cut on the cow. It has a texture with some chew to it that the people who love it consider part of the experience. Cook it over high heat to medium rare, rest it generously, and slice it thin against the grain. Anything past medium and you are working against it.

Sold individually and priced by weight.

If hanger is your cut, our skirt, flank, bavette, flat iron, and sierra steaks are all worth keeping in the same rotation. Different cuts, same spirit.