Revealed: the world's best sirloin steak

Xanthe Clay 20 October 2015 11:23am BST Beef lovers, sharpen your steak knives. Thursday saw the inaugural World Steak Challenge, with prime meat being entered from 10 countries including

USA, Japan, Uruguay, Germany and Australia. It’s a pretty enticing prospect for a meat eater – all that lovely, TOP-NOTCH BEEFY GOODNESS. So when the organisers invited me to judge in the

final round - the top eleven steaks of the seventy originally submitted - I made myself available, skipped lunch, and headed off to The Lookout in Hyde Park. Bizarrely, the judging took

place in the Trudie Styler and Sting Discovery Room, but let’s hope these two vociferous vegetarians would approve of the pursuit of excellence, however meaty. The judges were certainly

illustrious, including Brett Duarte, the executive chef of the Argentinian steak restaurant chain, Gaucho; George McCartney, the fifth generation of award-winning butchers McCartneys of

Moira in Northern Ireland and Franck Ribière whose documentary “Steak (r)evolution” has achieved cult status among the meaterati. After an introduction and reminder of the rules, it was time

to judge our first steak. Three plates arrived at the table, one containing a raw steak, one a whole cooked steak, and the third a cooked and sliced steak for tasting – all the steaks were

sirloin, cut to 2cm. But we had no other information at all – no clue as to the country it came from, the breed or how long the meat had been hung.  I hovered hopefully with my fork poised,

but before we tucked in, the judges circled the plates, inspecting the raw meat and sniffing the plates. It turned out that quite a lot could be deduced just by looking. The colour of the

flesh was important - brighter red meat had been hung for a shorter time than the darker samples – and the size of the steak and prominence of the “grain” (meaty fibres) hinted at the breed.

* THE WORLD'S BEST STEAK RESTAURANTS The fat came in for special attention, both the amount of marbling (the meat cognoscenti do love a bit of marbling, as the fat carries flavour) and

the cap of fat along the steak. “Yellow fat indicates a grass-fed animal,” Franck Ribière told me. “The colour is from the betacarotene from the grass.” Corn-fed beef, it turns out, has

whiter fat. Which is better? Well, health and sustainability issues aside – grass-fed meat wins on both these criteria – the judges agreed that both can taste excellent. Ah yes, the taste –

and finally we dived in. The steak had been cooked on a barbecue to a perfect medium rare, so for a few moments there was just the noise of happy chomping. Then – privately – we awarded

scores for tenderness, succulence, flavour and length. How did we pick a winner? We didn’t confer, and our marks were secret, so I can only tell you that I was looking for reasonable

tenderness, good tasting fat, and above all a really meaty taste that lingered in the mouth. No salt was allowed, or used during cooking, and as steak succeeded steak, it was striking how

the best steaks had so intense a flavour that the absence of seasoning hardly mattered. My top three had very close scores – and I am told that overall three stood out, but I’ll never know

if they were the same as mine, only that the winner was indeed one of my favourites. When, at a drinks party under the stars in Hyde Park, the prize was awarded to a WAGYU cross steak from 

Willow Tree Farm by Jack’s Creek in Australia, Frank Albers from the German importers and Jack's Creek Managing Director Patrick Warmoll, they were clearly delighted. But it won’t do

for the Aussies to get too complacent.  The likes of Franck Ribiere consider British steak (especially Black Angus) some of the best in the world. Next to me at the party was David

Ramsbotham from Northern Irish meat suppliers Hannan Meats, one of the gold medal winners, and he looked galvanised. “This was just the warm-up,” he told me. “We’ll see about next  year.” 

Roll on WSC 2016. The steak knives are out. THE 11 GOLD MEDAL-WINNING STEAKS ARE: AUSTRALIA * WORLD’S BEST STEAK – JACK’S CREEK Wagyu Angus cross, 450 days grain fed, entered by Albers GMBH.

* Branded Beef, Brisbane – 24 months old Wagyu Cross. Raised on grass, finished on grain. * Whyalla Farm, Queensland – 22 months Black Angus, 200 day grain fed. Entered by Jan Zandbergen

b.v (Netherlands). * Rangers Valley Cattle Station – 27 months Angus grain fed raised in Inverell, New South Wales. CANADA * One Earth Farms Corp -  16 months Angus. Range raised, grain

finished with barley and Barley silage ENGLAND * Flat Iron Farm, Thirsk, Yorkshire – 46 months Pure Bred Dexter, raised for three summers on grass then barley, sugar wheat silage. Entered by

Flat Iron, Soho. * Gamage Hall, Gloucestershire – 18 to 20 months Aberdeen Angus Cross, raised on grass haylage, rye grass/white clover mix pasture, grassed on perennial rye grass/red

clover/Lucerne silage (alfalfa). Entered by Miller and Carter (Mitchells and Butlers plc). JAPAN * Kato Farm - 28 months Japanese Black Wagyu. Grass/grain fed. Entered by Nice to Meat.

NORTHERN IRELAND * Mr H Millar – 29 months shorthorn, raised on grass, Entered by Hannan Meats. SCOTLAND * J Thompson – 18 months Aberdeen Angus raised on straw,oats, pot ale syrup and maise

mill. Entered by Scotbeef Ltd.  USA * Eleven Mill Iron Ranch, Sumner, Nebraska – 20 months Black Angus. Milk raised until eight months, pasture grazed nine months (alfalfa, wild grasses)

and grain finished (corn, distillers grains, silage, alfalfa). _THE WORLD STEAK CHALLENGE IS PRESENTED BY GLOBAL MEAT NEWS._