For meat that’s a cut above, try Randall Lineback

If you’re looking for something different and extraordinary to serve at your holiday table this year, have I got the dish for you: crusty inch-and-a-half-thick, bone-in rib-eye steaks, slowly cooked to medium-rare, carved into juicy slices and dotted with red wine balsamic butter.

But these aren’t just any old steaks.

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Where to buy Randall Lineback beef

A small but devoted group of Washington area chefs, among them Robert Wiedmaier, Brian McBride and Jeff Black, swears by the calf meat that comes from Chapel Hill Farm’s Randall Linebacks, a rare heritage breed of cattle descended from Colonial times and in danger of extinction.

Nine years ago, the farm’s proprietor, Joe Henderson, bought 25 head of them. He was looking to raise cattle on the 600-acre property he and his wife, Lucia, had purchased near Berryville, Va., in 1999, and he chose Randall Linebacks because the American Livestock Breed Conservancy listed them as critically endangered. In 2002, there were thought to be only about 100 in the world.

At the heart of Henderson’s decision to take on the Randall Linebacks as a cause was his sense of stewardship. An avid fisherman, hunter and conservationist, he says he’s interested in leaving the land in better shape than he found it. He wound up with 500 more acres than he had originally intended to buy and saw raising cattle as a way to tend the land.

“A friend of mine told me if I was going to do cows, I was going to lose money, so I may as well do it in a worthwhile way. So here I am,” Henderson likes to say.

Drawing on previous farming experience, a master’s degree in business from Harvard and capital acquired from a successful career in strategic planning and equity management, Henderson, now 66, embarked on a rigorous campaign to help save Randall Linebacks from extinction.

The first order of business was to hire farm manager Noah Travers, a local with experience raising cattle and an agriculture degree from Virginia Tech. Travers oversaw growing the herd, initially through embryo transfer and then by letting Mother Nature (field breeding) take over once a base herd was established.

Henderson guesses that once the breeding herd, which doesn’t count bulls, is 1,000 strong, its survival is ensured. To date his herd numbers around 300.

Vital to the breed’s growth was to create demand for the product. Business-wise, it made sense to Henderson to sell only whole animals, so he needed to find chefs who could hang, store and butcher 300 pounds of meat and who were willing to pay its premium price. (Randall Lineback costs $7 per pound, as opposed to the $1.40 per pound that Travers says Angus carcasses go for these days.) Having the know-how to utilize every part of the animal from head to tail was another requirement; that would be the only way restaurants could realize a profit.

Through a business connection, Henderson met Brian McBride, then executive chef at the Blue Duck Tavern in the District’s West End. In 2006, McBride hosted a dinner for some of his chef buddies and served seven courses of Randall Lineback: tete de veau, pressed veal belly, T-bone rack and osso buco (shanks), plus the liver, kidneys and tail.