Rump

Part of the round near the hip, mostly lean with a fine texture. Fat is kept to a minimum, which lets the flavor of the meat itself come through clean; among the round cuts it's relatively tender, with a refined finish. Its cross-section is a pale pink, and with so little fat it's said to resist toughening even once it cools. Among the round cuts it's said to be especially fine-grained, letting the quality of the lean meat itself take center stage.

Its modest fat supports a light, clean flavor, suiting steaks and roasting. It's sometimes cut out together with the adjoining top sirloin cap and traded as a single unit before being separated back into individual cuts at the butcher. Beyond thick steaks, it's also said to suit thin slices for tataki or roast beef. Cooking it gently at low temperature is said to help it hold onto the moist, tender texture particular to lean meat.

As the quality of lean meat has drawn more attention in recent years, this cut is said to have increasingly been chosen as a way to make lean flavor itself the main event, within a beef culture that had leaned toward fattier cuts. Chosen more for the quality of the meat itself than for fat content, it's said to have found favor among diners who prefer lean beef. As health-consciousness has grown, its low fat content itself is said to have become a reason diners choose it.