Bobby Flay cooked up some controversy online when the chef said he prefers his meat cooked medium.
The chef and restaurateur appeared on TODAY April 4 to share his recipe for spicy steak frites. Before he could dive into giving us the step-by-step, anchor Craig Melvin asked him to defend what people believe to be an unpopular opinion among chefs.
“I think there’s gonna be a little bit of chatter about this because, like, if you ask most chefs, they wanna eat — they’ll tell you that they want like rare or medium-rare steaks and burgers,” Flay said in a March 22 TikTok video. “I don’t. I love my burgers to be medium.”
He said the same goes for steaks.
“People were stunned to hear you say that,” Craig told the chef during his Thursday appearance.
Some commenters on Instagram said they “totally agree” with Flay, adding that they “always order medium” and some even “despise medium rare!!”
One commenter said even just hearing Flay talk about the tailgate classic “makes me want a 🍔 real bad....” adding a flame emoji at the end.
But others disagreed completely.
“No offense to Bobby (I ❤️ him),” one naysayer wrote, “but RARE ALWAYS and FOREVER for burgers and steak!!!”
Others also came to the more rosy-centered option’s defense, saying the shorter cook time results in a perfect dish for them with lots of flavor.
Flay — who owns a burger chain and has a steak house partnership with mobile caterer Wonder — explains that he always orders his meat cooked medium because if it's too rare, “it’s, like, hard to chew.”
A medium-rare cook typically results in meat with internal temperatures between 130 — 135 F, whereas medium runs between 140 — 145 F. The latter loses some of the pink/red center many associate with a quality dish.
On the show, he told Craig, “I believe that people don’t really wanna eat medium-rare steak.” What they actually want, he says, is for their steak or burger to be cooked medium.
“The fat has to melt,” he explains. “If the fat doesn’t melt, there’s no — there’s not as much flavor and it’s not as tender.”
The chef says the ideal is still for the meat to be pink inside when you cut into it.
And even though it might look pretty, Flay says it’s not his favorite way to enjoy the meal. And he thinks there are more people out there who agree with him than are willing to admit it.
“A lot of my chef friends — they might not admit it on the internet or on the TODAY show — they feel the same way.”