Brass Ram Reaffirms Dallas' Love of the Steakhouse

There may be no more storied dining venue in Dallas than the steakhouse. It’s an immutable fact that people in Dallas love a great steak, and the options for places to enjoy one in the city continue to grow.

The formula remains the same at most of Dallas’ steakhouses: massive cuts of meat, both in weight and cost, accompanied by large-portioned sides served a la carte. Carnivorous excess is also a formula that still caters to men, with dark paneled dining rooms, dim lighting and overstuffed chairs, with masculine artwork on the walls and photos of women in varying stages of undress in the men’s room.

Over at Town Hearth, Nick Badovinus takes the masculine steakhouse to the extreme: old sports games replay in bathrooms, sports trophies abound and the menu includes a $75,000 motorcycle as a side. Instead of being imposing, the machismo of Town Hearth is a schtick, and it’s a wildly entertaining way to spend an evening.

When we learned that Badovinus would open another steakhouse called Brass Ram, we couldn't help but ask ourselves why. As we learned, Brass Ram is like Town Hearth’s less-over-the-top cousin, the one who spent his 20s touring with jam bands before settling into respectability.

Brass Ram sits above National Anthem in the East Quarter, and short of small gold lettering on the door opposite National Anthem’s entrance, there’s little in the way of signage to let you know you’re at the right spot. A quick jaunt upstairs (an elevator is available) deposits you in the restaurant lobby, then it's through one more set of doors to the hostess stand to be seated.
Looking around, the lack of signage downstairs makes sense; the entire budget must have been blown on the interior. "Opulent" doesn’t do the space justice. Every table is a leather-bound booth for six, and mid-century light fixtures with Edison-style bulbs provide just enough warm light over each table.

Look closer, and the feast for the eyes continues with shelves lined with old books, various trinkets and, of course, brass rams tucked into every open space. Yes, the decor says manly steakhouse, but in more of a Mad Men kind of way. While taking in all of the eye candy, it’s fair to wonder if your credit score is good enough to partake in a meal.

Brass Ram is a take on the prime rib steakhouse, and where Town Hearth offers the cut only on the weekends, it’s front and center of Brass Ram’s menu every evening of service. Servings come in four different sizes, and Brass Ram dry cures their prime rib with salt and pepper for 24 hours with spectacular results.
We opted for the English cut ($62) on our first visit, and were rewarded with 12 ounces of thin-sliced beef cooked to a brilliant ruby medium from edge to edge. Our plate was finished off with side of horseradish cream that was light on horseradish zing, and a savory Yorkshire pudding.

The menu goads those looking to prove their manhood into ordering yet bigger portions. Scaling up to the American (“a cut fit for a gentleman”) gets you 14 ounces, while the Duke (“roughly three fingers thick”) is 20 ounces. Pop’s Cut is a 28-ounce bone-in behemoth for an eye-popping $135.

Brass Ram offers other steaks and chops if prime rib isn’t your thing. My dining companion ordered a tender 8-ounce filet ($55) that arrived cooked perfectly to her request. We rounded our meal with two of the a la carte sides. The creamed potatoes ($16) are topped with a delicious sage pan jus that added the perfect touch to the potatoes. On the night of our visit, the vegetable of the day was a roasted cauliflower served in a browned butter sauce ($12); it shouldn’t be skipped if it’s offered during your visit.
If you can stay away from steaks and chops, it’s possible to dine more affordably at Brass Ram, although affordable is a relative term. Naturally, there are meatballs ($19), here dressed with a blue cheese frisée salad. The rock shrimp casino ($27) get basted in butter and a Parmesan gremolata that had us sopping up the sauce with bread.

Later, we popped in midweek without a reservation and sidled up to Brass Ram’s ample bar to try Badovinus’ eloquently named “A Burger Like I Had In Paris That One Time A While Ago”. The burger is $27 on its own, and we added an order of steak fries for $15 more. We ordered our burger medium, which the bartender confirmed would arrive a deep pink.
Forty-two dollars for a burger and fries should set high expectations, and we weren't disappointed. The wagyu patty on our burger was magically medium from edge to edge, a thin, crispy char containing the burger’s juiciness. It’s topped with bacon, red onion and melty raclette. Steak fries are cooked in beef tallow and come with bearnaise for dipping. We savored every decadent bite while trying not think about the cost per mouthful. Perhaps Badovinus’ next restaurant will have “A Burger Like I Served At Off-Site Kitchen For Under Ten Bucks A While Ago”.

As long as we’re making requests, we’d like to squeeze in one more, at the risk of sounding insufferably old. Can we please turn down the music? Brass Ram’s playlist is curated by Badovinus himself, heavy on Latin pop, acid jazz and post punk that’s lively and upbeat, but bass-heavy nearly to the point of distraction. Brass Ram is a place to celebrate with friends, so if you’re looking for a quiet romantic dinner, the music will be an impediment to your expectations. Two bartenders admitted that they look forward to “quiet close” when they turn off the music and wrap up their cleaning tasks after the restaurant closes.

Brass Ram still leans heavily on the upscale Dallas steakhouse motif of many of its forbears, but there’s a playfulness — similar to National Anthem, Town Hearth and Desert Racer — that keeps the pretentiousness to a minimum. Yes, it’s a splurge, and one that most of us will save for special occasions. But steakhouses need to be less stuffy to attract a younger clientele, and when viewed through that prism, Brass Ram’s twists to the genre do well to separate it from the crowd.

Brass Ram, 2130 Commerce St. (above National Anthem). Tuesday – Thursday, 5 –10 p.m.; Friday – Saturday, 5–11 p.m.