Hollywood Casino Toledo Executive Chef Brian Hein will soon debut “the next evolution” of Final Cut Steak & Seafood’s menu, adding a new variety of premium steak as well as cod and lobster dishes, appetizers and more.
Hollywood Casino Toledo Executive Chef Brian Hein and his team have developed several new menu items for Final Cut Steak & Seafood. Toledo Free Press Photo by Joseph Herr.
“It’s phenomenal,” said Hollywood Casino Toledo Director of Food and Beverage Marc Guastella of the new menu. “When we opened I think our product was outstanding, but this is really going to take it to the next level.”
The most significant change is the addition of American Wagyu steak, Hein said.
“It’s what I like to refer to as beef butter. It melts in your mouth,” Hein said. “Its rating (on a scale of 0 to 10) is 10-plus. That’s as high as you can get. It really represents [a tiny percentage] of the cattle in America. Obviously it’s not a steak you’re going to eat every other night, but to experience it is certainly a treat. If you have the opportunity and you’re a beef fan, I would strongly recommend coming in. It’s quite spectacular.”
American Wagyu is known for its high marbling content, which makes it extremely tender, rich and flavorful, Guastella said.
“We’re excited. This makes us very unique. There’s really not many restaurants that offer that grade of meat,” Guastella said. “You can cut through it with a butter knife. It’s that tender and the flavor is outrageous. It’s just phenomenal steak.”
Final Cut will now offer three tiers of steak: Midwestern corn-fed steer, USDA Prime and American Wagyu.
“We’ve got three levels, which is very unique because a lot of steakhouses have at most two levels of beef,” Guastella said. “To have three levels is incredible and really gives guests at all price points the option to enjoy it.”
American Wagyu will be offered as a 12-ounce Kansas City Strip for $96, a 10-ounce Top Cap Ribeye for $89 or a 5-ounce Top Cap Ribeye for $45.
The meat will come from Idaho-based Snake River Farms, which supplies beef to many well-known high-end eateries, including California’s The French Laundry and “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto’s eateries.
Another new entrée at Final Cut is the Georges Bank Cod, cooked with Asian noodles in a tagine, an earthenware pot with a cone-shaped lid commonly used in Mediterranean cooking.
“This is a bit unusual because we’re preparing this cod dish in a tagine with Asian fusion in a steakhouse, so we pretty much travel the whole world right there in that one dish,” Hein said, laughing. “The last step is to interject a little bit of applewood smoke into the tagine. Then at the table, you pull off the top and the smoke perfumes right in front of you and just jump starts your senses.”
Cioppino — a seafood stew featuring shrimp, scallops, mussels and crab in a tomato-based broth — is another new entrée.
“The cioppino we actually ran as a special and it was so successful we decided to put that on the menu,” Guastella said. “Especially in the wintertime, there’s nothing better.”
A lamb shank, featuring cipollini onions, wild mushrooms and port wine, is also a classic winter dish, Guastella said.
“The meat just falls off the bone,” he said. “It’s a very rich braised item, perfect for cold weather.”
A Maine Lobster entrée, featuring a one-and-a-half-pound lobster filled with Thermidor stuffing, is also new.
Perhaps the most surprising new appetizer is tater tots.
“We like to have a little fun with our appetizer section,” Hein said. “We pulled out of some of the traditionalist thinking and one of the items we’re putting on there is homemade tater tots. This is an adult version obviously, but we make them from scratch and we present them with homemade jalapeño jam, a mornay sauce and pork crackling from Tank’s Meats in Elmore.”
Another new appetizer is roasted bacon, artisan-cured by Tank’s Meats and featuring a maple glaze, arugula pesto and Russian dressing.
“The Russian dressing is a little bit different,” Hein said. “We put it on an anti-griddle, which is extremely cold, and it actually freezes. That’s how we put it on the plate. Then over the course of eating it, it begins to thaw and gives just a little bit of texture on the plate.”
Other new appetizers include carpaccio, a yellowtail snapper in a grape and leek emulsion, and a lobster chowder, which will replace the lobster bisque.
Sorbet, used to cleanse the palate between courses, is also new.
“We’ll be playing around with flavors, but the ones we have now are pomegranate lime, green tea ginger and lemongrass honey,” Guastella said.
Guastella and Hein said they pride themselves on offering something for everyone.
“We feel like guests are going to be very pleased not only at the quality of the product, but also at the eclectic nature of the menu,” Guastella said. “Our menu is packed. We have very affordable options, but also high-end exclusive options. I doubt there’ll be any option for a guest to say there’s nothing on there that they like.”
For more information, visit hollywoodcasinotoledo.com.
