Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

The ribeye is one of the most desirable “trophy” steak cuts, with its ample amount of intramuscular fat and two tender and beefy muscle groups, the longissimus dorsi (the “eye” of the ribeye) and the spinalis dorsi (the “ribeye cap”). Since it’s such a rich cut, it tastes amazing when given a nice char on the grill. However, its fattiness makes grilling tough—all that fat causes flare-ups as it renders, and you don’t want a beautiful char to be marred by the taste of burnt soot. This technique maximizes the utility of a <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/guides-tools/two-zone-grilling-guide">two-zone grilling setup</a>. Frequently moving the steak around on the hot zone of the grill gives you great charring without uncontrollable flare-ups. Once charred, the steak is slowly brought up to serving temperature in a just-warm butter bath set up in a cast iron skillet on the cool zone of the grill, which gives you precision control over doneness. A scattering of herbs and big squeeze of lemon juice adds brightness to the perfectly cooked, perfectly charred steak.

Grilled and Butter-Rested Ribeye Steak