“I don’t know anybody that’s working with wagyu on this level in the U.S.,” says chef Marc Zimmerman, of San Francisco’s Gozu. At the restaurant, Zimmerman’s wagyu beef tasting menu — which has featured everything from yakitori-style skewers to wagyu brisket on grilled milk bread, topped with uni — shows off different ways to approach the entire animal.
Zimmerman was inspired to create the tasting menu when he worked as the business development manager for a steakhouse that has locations across the globe, which allowed him to travel. When talking with farmers in Japan, one asked him if he would be willing to take a whole animal back to the United States rather than just one part. “That was always really intriguing to me,” says Zimmerman.
For all of its dishes, Gozu dry-ages the wagyu beef that they have coming in. “Dry-aging has really become quite a phenomenon; you won’t generally see these cuts of wagyu in the United States,” says Zimmerman, noting that restaurants tend to stick to cuts like the New York strip, ribeye, and tenderloin. “You almost have to build a place to serve it.”
Watch the full video to see how Zimmerman and his team prepares and serves the wagyu tasting menu.