Wolfgang Puck Asked TikTok About Steak Tartare And People Have Lots To Say

When a celebrity chef asks you if you are up for steak tartare, it might just ignite a conversation. And that is just what has happened on Wolfgang Puck's Tiktok channel. Puck is well known for his flagship restaurant Spago, catering for the Oscars, and his signature smoked salmon pizza. The Austrian-born chef has been a part of the California culinary scene for nearly 50 years, per Puck's website. He showed off his skills to the Hollywood community at Ma Maison. However, when you add raw meat to the equation, sometimes it doesn't matter how good you are at your craft.

Steak tartare has French origins, according to MasterClass. It is comprised of minced, raw, ground beef (okay, hamburger meat – we said it), capers, Worcestershire sauce, a little salt and pepper, and onions. Fashioned into what looks like a hockey puck with a little divet, this delicacy is generally topped off with an egg yolk and served with a side of bread. It can be made as something to tide you over before your main course or as a meal in and of itself. But steak tartare can bring out some strong emotions, and Puck's TikTok peeps have a lot to say about the chef's take on this dish.

Puck posted an 8-second video of steak tartare being prepared. The text overlay asked, "Would you eat raw steak?" The video, which features a mini-column of raw minced steak along with a streak of egg yolk and Worcestershire sauce, has received almost 450,000 views, more than 22,000 likes, and a lot of responses to the chef's question.

Naturally, there were plenty who responded in the affirmative with a simple "Yes." But several followers couldn't get past the possible germs that are associated with steak tartare. As Gordon Ramsay explains in his MasterClass article, this dish, which consists of raw meat and raw egg, does come with a health risk. Of course, one TikToker wisely noted, "I mean context is everything. At 2am from a Dennys? Pass." Clearly, who prepares your steak tartare matters. But another commenter was a little more graphic in their opinion, humorously quipping, "Brought to by a joint venture between 'Colon Blow' & 'Worm-B-Gone.'" Yikes.  

And then there was that one commenter who was a negative but eloquently drove home their perspective, asking, "Probably the same price as cooked steak why are you letting them off the hook of the most important step?" Fair point. While we definitely live by the French philosophy of "chacun à son goût" or "to each their own taste," steak tartare is not something everyone wants as their own.