Kenji Lopez-Alt's book, The Food Lab, is a big heavy book, chock full of ideas, some of them rather controversial.
For example, he recommends against letting meat warm up to room temperature, because a 1" thick steak will take 4-5 hours to get to room temperature and that's too long in the danger zone.
His recommendation: Take it out of the fridge, season it, let it sit for a few minutes, then onto the grill.
I know professional chefs say they can tell how done a steak is by looking at and touching it, but I prefer to use my Thermapen. We like our steaks on the well-done side, about 158 degrees in the center. They're still plenty tender and juicy at that point.
A few seasons back on Hell's Kitchen one of the challenges was to cook 3 steaks, one medium-rare, one medium and one well-done and serve them at the same time. I want to try eating in one of Gordon Ramsay's steak restaurants once, to see if one of his professional chefs can do well-done meat that isn't cooked to death. I know I can do it.
Most steak places have something in the menu cautioning customers about ordering well-done meat. Based on what Gordon Ramsay has said, I think they're just being lazy.
