For meat-lovers who wonder if their steak came from a good steer family, Steve Hanson, owner of Blue Water Grill, and David Burke, owner of DavidBurke & Donatella, are going into cow-impregnation. As part of their latest project, David Burke’s Primehouse (the first will be in Chicago, followed by one in New York), they bought their own 2,500-pound Black Angus bull. The $250,000 stud will be used to inseminate hundreds of females (the bull is ejaculated several times a day with a machine; cows are inseminated by hand using a glove and a long needle). The hope is he’ll produce a super-tasty herd with optimally marbleized meat. “They have really mastered the genetics,” says Hanson, whose bull hails from Kentucky’s Creekstone Farms. Of course, other steakhouse owners think the whole thing is a bunch of bull. “Buying cows!” exclaims Greg Sherry, who owns Chelsea’s Old Homestead. “Do you have any idea how hard the restaurant business is? I’m not going into the breeding business too.”

Next: Jack Abramoff Ducks No-Spin Zone

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Beth Landman
• Table of Contents: January 16, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!