Chef,

What's a suitable cut of beef for Steak Tartare, and should I chop it myself or have it ground at the store?

Cuts from the tenderloin are good cuts.
Do not have it ground. It should be finely chopped.
Beware food-borne illness eating raw beef and eggs

This^
Get two very sharp knives and chop-messy. Or break the loin down and brunois dice.
Raw egg yolk, Capers, shallots, and gerkins for garnish.

The way I have had it is you scrape the meat with a soup spoon and you get a very fine "grind" of meat. If you can find them, use pasteurized eggs.

There will no eggs involved. My grandmother use to serve us a raw ground beef w/chopped onion sandwich when we were young, and Steak Tartare is the closest thing I've ever seen to match the sandwich. She only got the meat at Karl Ehmers' in our area. I did get a recommendation from a chef at the CIA (I think(?) it was Thomas Keller) to use hanger steak(?). I may be wrong.

YUM I love that stuff.

When I was a kid my folks would get gigantic chuck steaks and grill them for dinner some times.  Cut across the grain it was tender enough and kept all the flavor of the chuck.  

Dad would slather the steaks with soy and worchestershire, sprinkle them with black pepper and garlic powder, and let them thaw in the fridge while they marinated.  


All of this is lead up to the real important bit:  

If you take sliced chuck steak, (thin slices) and dip em in salty garlic soy and wooster, and let em sit for a few minutes, they become one of the world's most addictive things.  I was forever being accused of being a vampire for snitching slices off the steak while it worked in the marinade bag.  

Well at least until I got Mom to try a bite.  Then she joined me in the pilferage.  

Carpaccio di cow es molto delicioso!