50 of the animal. Lucki swears by the ribeye cap, the removed and rolled-up outer muscle of the ribeye steak, which he calls “the very best piece of meat on a cow”. To find a complete answer to the question about the perfect steak, however, we have to go back a lot further. Lucki likes to use a metaphor that occurred to him a while ago: a cattle farm is like the gearbox in a vehicle, where many little cogwheels work together in unison. Every single aspect needs to be just right for that perfect cut of meat to land on your plate in the end: the rearing method, the breeds, their genetics, feed, castration, age and sex, the slaughtering and butchering process, the storage and maturing of the meat and, of course, its preparation. Lucki likes to think of his meat as a whole food rather than a product. And he doesn’t care for clichés, either: he loves filter coffee, Toast Hawaii and isn’t above adding a splash of Maggi liquid seasoning to his beef stew. With the legendary Jolly Roger Cooking Gang, founded by the award-winning celebrity chef Stefan Marquard, he got to know the wild side of cooking – together, they have cooked for 1,500 people at the SPD party conference and, on another occasion, for Metallica! But Lucki’s respectful approach to food is entirely of his own making. The farmer, who has been named the “best newcomer ever” in the top-100 ranking of German gastronomy professionals, draws his beliefs from the life he experiences every day in his stables and on his pastures. “I’d rather have a really good steak once a week than a daily dinner of sub-par meat that was created with profits, rather than life, in mind.”
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