The menu at Kobe Club advertises genuine Kobe beef, along with Australian and American wagyu, and encourages discerning carnivores to compare and contrast these different sources by making small cuts available and assembling a “samurai’s flight” of four-ounce tasting portions of Australian, American and Japanese wagyu, plus six ounces of American prime beef, for $190.

For $295, there’s an “emperor’s flight” of four ounces each of Kobe fillet and strip loin and 10 ounces of Kobe rib-eye. Although tempted by this imperial excursion, intended for two, I confined myself to more restrained, strategic samplings.

They were enough to establish the kitchen’s usual competence with steaks, grilled and seasoned only with salt and pepper, the right call. Anything more would distract from the glories of a steer well fed.

At Kobe Club these glories were more evident in the Australian than in the American wagyu, and they were most evident in the Kobe, which has the densest marbling. Kobe does for steak what o-toro does for tuna, showcasing a holy communion of flesh and fat, inseparable from each other and impossibly silky on the tongue. It’s rapturous. At upwards of $5 a bite, it had better be.

Kobe and wagyu never come cheap, so the jaw-dropping prices of many steaks at Kobe Club — $35 for just four ounces of American wagyu fillet, $150 for 10 ounces of Kobe rib-eye — aren’t entirely unwarranted.

But even diners who steer clear of wagyu, thereby missing the whole point of the restaurant, don’t get off easy. A 12-ounce prime fillet is $48, an organic chicken entree $32.

What’s more, servers seem intent on plumping up the tab, whether by omitting any mention of a tap when asking about water preferences or rushing to replace cocktails and glasses of wine that are suspiciously shallow on arrival. Surrendering to that hustle is all too easy: extra alcohol helps blot out the environment.