When conjuring up images of body-conscious LA, huge slabs of beef might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but the city is home to a bevy of meat-centric restaurants where in-house bespoke butchering, curing and high-tech storage chambers are the order of the day. From Michelin-starred outfits to more commercial enterprises, such as Meat on Ocean in Santa Monica with its massive meat locker on display for customers watching the sunset, tinseltown has turned carnivore.
If you want to learn more, chef David LeFevre, at the Arthur J in Manhattan Beach, offers a class on grade, cuts, ageing, seasoning, temperatures, resting and basic butchery, followed by a tasting of 10-12 steaks. Here are a handful of fresh offerings in LA where the chef is doing double-time as the butcher, often with the choice cuts on full display.
APL Restaurant
Adam Perry Lang’s steakhouse has an underground chamber that takes the art of curing and dry-ageing meat under controlled humidity and temperature to a new level. Lang (pictured above) butchers all the meat and even hand-forges steel knives for precision cutting. Photography: Sergiy Barchuk
Gwen
Gwen’s storefront case displays everything from boar prosciutto and aged culatello to venison and antelope. Nearby, carcasses hang from hooks in a locker, and you might find chef Curtis Stone or head butcher Andrew Sutton in an ageing room carving up a hazelnut-fattened pig. Photography: Ray Kachatorian
Tesse
At Tesse (short for delicatessen), 18 charcuterie varieties are on display in an ageing and curing refrigeration system behind the bar. There is also a stuffing and casing machine, and an area where sausages are salt cured and hung until ready for wood smoking. Photography: Wonho Lee
Rossoblu
Rossoblu has a temperature-controlled butcher box room where all meats are on show for private dining guests via a glass window. Chef Steve Samson is hands on when breaking down a whole pig or wood-firing a mixed grill with tomahawk pork chops and house sausages. Photography: Wonho Frank Lee. §
As originally featured in the October 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*235)