Franck Ribière likes his steak rare — and not just the temperature to which it’s cooked.
The French producer’s debut as a documentarian, “Steak (R)evolution,” travels to Argentina, Japan, Sweden, Scotland, Canada and other countries in search of the world’s best beef. Ribière finds it at small farms where breeds of “heritage” cows are treated with great respect, getting sake massages, listening to Mozart and enjoying other indulgences.
Along with celebrity French butcher Yves-Marie le Bourdonnec, the filmmaker grills farmers and chefs on their views of the changing industry and the secret to producing perfect meat — which, of course, the duo eat on camera, relishing every perfectly pink, umami-laden morsel.
Cultural preferences emerge: Japanese butchers display their beef with fat on, while the French prefer to hide it. Argentinians like ribs; Americans like rib-eye. Spaniards eat cows that live as long as 15 years, while the proprietor of New York’s Peter Luger Steak House could hardly imagine eating a cow older than 3.
And at London’s Hawksmoor restaurant, pity the chef who, holding a very expensive piece of meat, laments, “English people, unfortunately, like it well-done.” The documentary even stirred controversy in Europe: After le Bourdonnec said in the film that British beef is better than French beef, he was booted from his country’s butchers’ federation.
The meat in “Steak (R)evolution” isn’t what Americans typically eat. The film acknowledges environmental concerns about beef production, and while factory farming is denounced, it is never pictured in this overlong and occasionally repetitive film. Neither is the slaughter of cows, although, with all of the shots of butchery and beef carcasses hanging on hooks, vegans may see the movie as something of a snuff film.
Through Ribière and le Bourdonnec, you learn to read a steak like a book: blobby fat means the cow gained weight quickly; thinly marbled fat is more desirable, indicating weight that came “low and slow.” The meat is supposed to be the most beautiful thing in the documentary, but I found myself more drawn to the lingering shots of shaggy cows, silhouetted on European mountainsides, with their tousled bangs blowing in the wind.
Home cooks may even get a few pointers from the chefs, some of whom are Michelin-starred, and who pop up throughout the film to grill and broil. But unlike many food documentaries, the cooks get second billing. “Steak (R)evolution” leaves viewers with this tasty morsel of advice: If you want to eat a great steak, you need to find a great butcher.
