For the Gastronome

Tracking truffles in southern Italy, oysters in western France, añejos in Mexico’s highlands—if you know someone willing to trek far and wide to experience unique gustatory pleasures, we have the gifts for them.

Wine aficionados are well acquainted with the effects of age. Buy a few bottles of a favorite vintage, lay them down, and drink them at different intervals to appreciate the influence of time on wine. It’s more difficult for steak lovers.

That’s why one of the world’s great masters of meat, Adam Perry Lang, has created the exclusive Beef Club at APL Restaurant. Beneath his ode to the turn-of-the-century steak house, Lang has built a 1,000-square-foot aging room. That allows him to offer to a select few a place to age a whole rib roast—up to 12 individual portions—that they can then enjoy over multiple visits. “It’s really for the connoisseur,” he says. “You get to experience what happens to your beef as it ages and get to see its evolution. It’s a way for someone’s taste buds to become expert in terms of what they like because the beef is a constant.”

Over time, evaporation and oxidation will concentrate the flavor of the beef and allow it to develop notes of mushrooms, truffles, and an intense umami. Lang has found that 100 to 120 days of aging is his sweet spot. Beef Club members will finally get to find theirs. $1,800. Beef Club at APL Restaurant, apl-restaurant -hollywood.myshopify.com —Jeremy Repanich