Pursuing ultimate surf and turf
It’s like déjà vu, but more for us than for them.
The Mastros have been down this road before, parlaying steakhouse success into a seafood spin-off and building one restaurant into a full-fledged family.
But as Steak 44 in Phoenix undergoes renovations to expand its dining room and the December launch of Ocean 44 in Scottsdale fast approaches, to say the Mastros are repeating their previous success might be a facile analysis.
“We did do something similar to this, but the restaurant business is changing nonstop and you constantly have to be reinventing yourself or everything is passing you by,” Jeff Mastro says. “We opened our first steakhouse almost 20 years ago, so it’s night and day.”
To be sure, the similarities are there, from the progression their business has followed right down to the hiring of their newest executive chef — a familiar face who recently rejoined the team. But on this second pass, the Mastros and partner Scott Troilio aim to elevate their game and bring a fresh feel to a signature style that has dominated the Valley’s steakhouse scene for two decades.
From cinema to seafood
The team is busy trying to hire 240
people at all levels to staff Ocean 44. It seems like an awful lot of employees, until you see the space.
Walking through the 11,400-squarefoot construction zone that used to be the Harkins Camelview 5 might fool the untrained eye into thinking Ocean 44 won’t be ready in time for its late 2018 launch. But Mike Mastro — Jeff ’s brother — insists they’re right on schedule.
“Unless the monsoons drown us,” Mike chuckles, only mostly joking.
The standalone building at Highland Avenue and Goldwater Boulevard, just outside the north entrance of Scottsdale Fashion Square’s forthcoming luxury expansion, is starting to look like a restaurant, at least when Mike paints the picture on the grand tour.
It’s an impressive structure: A towering single floor with a center atrium that will feel as though it’s outdoors, though it’s in air-conditioned comfort.
“The love affair with food obviously has been in our culture forever,” Jeff says. “But the romance and the level of sexy that’s expected now and is the baseline now is, you know, far and above where it was 10 years ago.”
A look at the renderings would confirm this won’t be the dark, almost clubby atmosphere of the Mastros’ first set of restaurants — Mastro’s Steakhouse, Mastro’s Ocean Club and Mastro’s City Hall — which the family sold to New York investors in 2007. Rather, it’s lighter, more open and elegant, more in tune with the look of upscale restaurants in 2018.
As the tour continues, Mike describes a large bar, including bar dining that isn’t quite as formal as the main dining room, while offering a small cushion from the energy of the bar itself. There is a second dining-only bar; flexible private dining rooms; the main dining floor; and a section of dining tables overlooking a sound-deadening glassed-in kitchen, where chef Siegfried Hohaus will do his work.
Chef’s homecoming
Hohaus, who oversaw Mastro’s Ocean Club from its 2002 launch until earlier this year, recently rejoined the Mastros to helm Ocean 44. It was more happenstance than plan, according to Oliver Badgio, the restaurant group’s chief brand office.
“He was retiring,” Badgio says, but was intrigued by “a concept that unique” and focused on “fresh, high end-food.”
Hohaus interjects: “It’s a last hooray, you know?”
The team is excited to unveil something that complements Steak 44 — also featuring both steak and seafood, but with the proportions reversed.
“We’re still going to have our great steaks, because if all of us went out to dinner, there’s a chance a lot of us would like to get a steak,” Jeff says. “But you’re flipping it. It’s primarily a seafood restaurant with great steaks.
“They’re complementary. You come to Steak 44 on Tuesday, you go to Ocean 44 on Wednesday, then back to Steak 44 on Thursday. And repeat.”
So where will the Ocean 44 menu take diners on Wednesdays?
Modern, creative seafood
“We love seafood. We’ve always loved it,” Jeff says. “We always wanted to do our seafood version of Steak 44, even more so now because there are so many cool things you can do with fish that we’ve been able to come up with.”
The general structure of the menu will be similar to Steak 44’s, but with a greater abundance and variety of seafood. To make Ocean 44 distinct, Hohaus is especially excited about Ocean 44’s wood-burning oven.
“We’ll do oysters, we’ll do mussels in there, we’ll do certain fishes in there — certain things which give you the flavor from the wood into the dish.”
The team describe dishes like a lobster bake; an heirloom tomato crab stack; a smoked salmon hash brown pizza; and an entire section of the menu devoted to wood-roasted oysters.
Pushing their style of steak and seafood house into the modern era, they are keeping dishes smaller and lighter, enabling diners to sample more items.
“People like to eat that way. I know I do. I want a little bit of everything,” Jeff says.
“We couldn’t have done the amount of interesting and unique dishes and appetizers that we do today. If they were the portion sizes from 10 years ago, it’d take you a year to eat through half the menu. You can’t do it,” Badgio says.
Hohaus notes the old standard — “14 ounces of fish” — and shakes his head.
Rather, expect the kind of nimble, creative fare that’s more in line with today’s steak and seafood houses.
“It’s going to be quite different,” Jeff says. “What might happen is we might have some stuff at Ocean 44 that we end up bringing back over to Steak 44 we like it so much.”
If that draws even bigger crowds to Steak 44 — already an Arcadia hot spot at 44th Street and Camelback Road — 602-271-4400, steak44.com.
Ocean 44
Opening at Highland Avenue and Goldwater Boulevard in Scottsdale in December.
ocean44.com. the team will be ready.
Steak 44 expands, improves
Those in the habit of frequenting Steak 44 only to return the next day to do their penance at the gym next door will soon discover that meaty hedonism has won this round. The Orangetheory Fitness is gone, and in its 2,400-squarefoot space there will soon be a new dining room for Steak 44, scheduled to open in January.
It’s another case of the Mastros taking something that has worked in the expansions and bringing it home. The new dining room, with a dining bar and barrel ceiling, is modeled after the upstairs dining rooms at Steak 44’s sister steakhouses in Chicago and Houston.
Behind the scenes, the expansion will include cold workrooms that allow the team to work in a refrigerated environment; bringing in more primal cuts; and doing more of their own butchery to better control quality — yet more industry evolution the Mastro family has witnessed, even if the average guest might not.
“Technology in the restaurant business is like any other industry,” Jeff says. “There’s a lot of stuff the guest might not see, but it’s about buying the best product and then treating it the best you can.”
At least some things never change.