At $45 an Ounce, Ozaki Beef Is the Premium Upgrade on Wagyu

Even in New York, a city blessed with the best in prime beef, some cuts have the power to grab people’s imagination. One of the more recent was a $185 steak sandwich that Don Wagyu, a compact storefront in the Financial District, started selling in 2018.

The star of that dish, which created lines down the block, was a thick, melt-in-your-mouth piece of meat densely marbled with flavorful fat. Called Ozaki, the beef inside that sandwich came from one small farm in Japan. Generally speaking, Japanese beef is richer and has a more luscious bite than its counterparts around the world because of the care farmers take with their cattle. That’s why wagyu, which means “Japanese cow” and encompasses any of the country’s four breeds, has become synonymous with quality.