Beef basics
Prime, Choice, Select: reading a steak menu
What Prime, Choice and Select mean on a Las Vegas steakhouse menu, how marbling decides the grade, and the USDA's safe temperatures for steak.
Updated Oct 22, 2026 · 3 sources
Las Vegas steakhouse menus throw around three words more than any other: Prime, Choice and Select. They aren’t marketing terms. They’re U.S. Department of Agriculture quality grades, and each one has a definition you can look up. Here’s what they mean, so you know what you’re paying for before the server comes back with the wine list.
What the grade measures
The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) grades beef mostly on marbling, the flecks of fat running through the lean. More marbling generally means more tenderness, juice and flavor. The AMS definitions:
| Grade | Minimum marbling | What the USDA says about it |
|---|---|---|
| Prime | Slightly abundant | From young, well-fed cattle; “generally sold in upscale restaurants” |
| Choice | Small | High quality, with less marbling than Prime |
| Select | Slight | Very uniform and normally leaner; fairly tender, but may lack some of the juiciness and flavor of the higher grades |
Below those sit Standard and Commercial, which the USDA says are often sold ungraded or as store-brand meat. Utility, Cutter and Canner grades are seldom, if ever, sold at retail and go into ground beef and processed products instead.
Grading is a quality call on the carcass, made separately from the “yield grades” (1 through 5) that measure how much usable lean a carcass gives. You will almost never see a yield grade on a menu.
How to use this at the table
- If the menu says “Prime,” it’s making a specific claim. It’s fair to ask which cuts are Prime and which aren’t, because some menus mix grades.
- If the menu names no grade at all, that isn’t automatically bad, but ask. A server should be able to tell you.
- Grade isn’t the whole story. Grade says nothing about aging (dry or wet), the breed, where the cattle were raised, or how the cook handles the grill. When we review a steakhouse we note the grade the restaurant claims and judge the plate in front of us.
- “Wagyu” and “Kobe” aren’t on the USDA’s list of quality grades. If a menu uses them, ask the restaurant what they mean by it and where the beef comes from.
Safe temperatures
The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) sets these minimum internal temperatures, measured with a food thermometer before the meat comes off the heat:
- Beef steaks, chops and roasts: 145°F (62.8°C), then rest at least 3 minutes.
- Ground beef and other ground meats: 160°F (71.1°C).
- Poultry of any kind: 165°F (73.9°C).
FSIS adds that you may cook food hotter for personal preference. These are the agency’s safety floors. They don’t define “medium-rare” or “medium,” which are kitchen terms that vary from place to place. A steak served rare is below the FSIS minimum, so that’s a choice you’re making.
Our take
We’ll print the grade a restaurant claims next to every steak we review, along with what we paid. We don’t test the beef ourselves, so a grade on Meat.Vegas is always “the restaurant says,” never “we confirmed.”