Steak-ing its claim

There are few restaurants that make one feel like a regular during one of their first visits.

That is the experience received at Bowdie’s Chophouse, 2237 Wealthy St. SE. It had been two years since the last visit, but the service was impeccable from the start. And for a location within downtown East Grand Rapids, that’s likely exactly what diners are looking for.

Let’s get this out of the way, Bowdie’s is one of the more expensive restaurants in town — as steakhouses generally tend to be. If price tag is a worry, this is a once-in-a-while sort of dinner.

But if the expendable income is there, or you’re one for regular steaks, Bowdie’s is a place that will welcome you like family.

“When customers come in, we’re very personalize, almost small community, exclusive type of personal,” said Ryan Slootmaker, Bowdie’s director of bourbon and spirits. “We try to go above and beyond to try and remember names, have the best products from a scratch kitchen. We’ll try to create that wow experience whenever we can.”

The meal, on a lovely spring Friday night outside, began with cocktails for the table. Ranging from classics like Vieux Carre and Aviation to a sweet Key Lime Pie martini, complete with a graham cracker crust.

Once we were enjoying strong, but well mixed, cocktails, shrimp cocktail — with a suitably spicy sauce! — crab cakes and oysters made their way to the table. While we leaned toward seafood apps, the burrata and prime tartare also caught my eye.

As we prepped to order our main dishes, Wine Director Heather Missad made her way to the table and talked us through several options that would fit well with our selections. There is a nice range of wine prices on the menu and we settled into a bottle of Braida Montebruna.

With three diners, we ordered a filet, Kansas City and Cowboy Ribeye. All cooked to a perfect medium rare on two of them and a medium on another.

For sides, the Brussels & belly and sautéed garlic spinach added well to the overall table.

With a well-made and served dinner behinds us, we chatted with Chef Alex Lukens. Lukens hopes his cooking is one that will bring the regulars back.

“When it comes to cooking, I like to ask myself, would I enjoy this dish if I were dining here? Would I be impressed? Would I come back again and again to enjoy?” Lukens said. “In our little corner of Grand Rapids, I believe our team has put together a program that delivers just that. It’s been my absolute pleasure to be doing what I love in the hometown I grew up.”

There are certainly segments of the Grand Rapids population who frequent steakhouses, and there are people who hit Bowdie’s multiple times per week, according to Slootmaker. Those certainly feel the love of being a regular.

But it’s also those diners who save up and make for a special occasion that Slootmaker and the service team hope to leave just as happy.

“It was a Christmas Eve, and a mom with her three kids came in as she said she’d saved up all year,” Slootmaker said. “She said, ‘It’s the best dinner I think I could ever had.’

“That moment means more to me than anything. That’s what really keeps us going. We have regulars that come in two, three times a week. But there are people saving up to take their kids for a Christmas dinner to get that same treatment. That’s the Bowdie’s way.

Steak and bourbon?
Once you wade into local, upscale steakhouses, the menus and quality can often be incredibly similar and hard to distinguish. A major factor that left me in awe was the attention to detail in the cocktail menu designed by Kenton Grassmid and the extensive bourbon program curated by Slootmaker.

“When you have the best steaks, you need to have the best products to serve with it,” Slootmaker said. “I thought it was very important to bring in some very cool bourbons.”

It was not that long ago, 2019 in fact, Bowdie’s was able to open its Grand Rapids location with Grassmid using now hard-to-find bourbons in his cocktails. (Bowdie’s also has its orginal location in Saugatuck, as well as restaurants in Lansing and Hilton Head, S.C., and Savannah, GA.)

But the bourbon market has undergone a renaissance, and its newfound popularity has sent prices skyrocketing and bottles harder and harder to find.

“There was this bourbon pop and all of a sudden bourbon was ‘good’ again,” Grassmid said.

For steaks, bourbon goes well with its hundreds of potential flavor profiles that complement steaks and the high alcohol content that can help through the fattiness of a steakhouse meal.

With the growing scarcity of bourbon and a natural flavor profile fit for steaks, Slootmaker set out to establish close relationships with whiskey producers and find out what it takes to get special allocations. When he approached Bowdie’s owner, Scott Bowdish, about it, Bowdish simply said, “If you can sell it, I don’t mind.”

So Slootmaker started, and then wanted to take it further and get his own barrel.

“As long as you can sell it,” Bowdish said.

Now, Bowdie’s is on to its fourth Maker’s Mark barrel. It’s had two Angel’s Envy barrels, which is, as far as Slootmaker can tell, the only private barrel selection from Angel’s Envy in Michigan. Bowdie’s had a Buffalo Trace barrel in the works.

“It’s crazy, we’re now getting barrels of stuff people have a hard time getting bottles of,” he said.

Bowdie’s has bottles of the grandfather of them all, Pappy’s. The heralded brand that has sent the bourbon world into a tizzy. But as any whiskey lover knows, there are better, more affordable options and Slootmaker likes to showcase those.

“Everyone is always gawking over that, and then they’re like, ‘What’s the best you got,’” Slootmaker said. “It makes our job so much more fun when you can convince someone they’re having something better than Pappy.”

Slootmaker has taken advantage of his industry relationships to host various dinners, including an event this spring with Suntory to highlight the world of Japanese whisky. The five-course meal featured whisky pairings, but also allowed customers to explore Japanese vodka and gin.

With the whiskey program built out, Slootmaker has also started to build out a more expansive collection of tequila and gin. He made specific note of the growing number of Michigan distilleries producing high-quality and unique gins.

With spirits a focus, Grassmid continues to pump out incredible cocktails — mostly all a twist on classics with high proof kick.

“They’re all classic with a twist,” Grassmid said. “In my head, there’s a cocktail and it’s been around a really long time. The cocktails that have stuck around, there’s a reason they’re good. So I take those, and make them better, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You just play with it and make it modern.

“We’re also going to make it so you don’t feel disappointed. They’re very spirit forward, you should know what booze it is. We’re going to make sure when you get a cocktail, you’re going to be satisfied.”