Going Whole Hog
More restaurants are butchering their own meat.

by Winnie Yang

A meat eater could be excused for thinking that cows and pigs consist only of loins, chops, ribs, and steaks. That’s all you can find at the supermarket, and pretty much all that comes into most restaurant kitchens. Purchasing whole animals or primal cuts was once common practice among restaurants, but the need for uniformity and consistency in the professional kitchen and the industrialization of meat production and distribution have rendered on-site butchering economically and logistically unfeasible.

These days the livestock landscape is changing and farmers across the country are holding out against the industrial standard, raising rare breeds in ecologically sound environments. Chefs who want to use this meat often have to purchase whole steers, pigs, lambs, and goats. And they require butchering.

Quality is one of the primary reasons chefs and restaurateurs choose to butcher whole or split carcasses in-house. Russell Moore, chef/owner of Camino in Oakland, California, says the quality of meat he wants just doesn’t come in pieces. He purchases whole carcasses of Laughing Stock Farm’s whey-fed, hazelnut-foraging pigs. “It’s the rare pig whose leg you can grill without it drying out,” Moore says, adding, “The fat is miraculous.” Laughing Stock’s Paul Atkinson won’t sell the pork in parts because the additional marketing and logistical complications would be too much for his tiny operation. Dan Barber, chef/owner of Blue Hill in New York, explains, “Local farms pasturing their animals have difficulty processing into primal cuts.” By opting not to butcher whole animals purchased directly from farmers, “I’d be passing up the opportunity to get great meat.”

Great meat doesn’t come cheap. In-house butchering also allows restaurants to keep the high cost of premium meat to a minimum. Tom Mylan, the resident butcher at Brooklyn’s Marlow & Sons—where broken-down carcasses are shared with sister restaurants Diner and Bonita—explains that a butchering program allows him to purchase pastured beef, pork, lamb, and goat raised by small family farms at a cost comparable to industrial “boxed meat.” There’s no processor middleman between slaughter and delivery, a role that can drive up costs enormously. 

Then there’s the added allure of being able to have a relationship with farmers and ranchers that’s mutually beneficial. “They’re small enough,” Moore says, “that they can talk about size, age, and breed. I can specify what I want.” For the chefs at Camino and Marlow & Sons, as well as restaurants like Chez Panisse, Fore Street in Portland, Maine, and Gramercy Tavern in New York City, knowing where their meat and other produce comes from is critical to the way they cook.

A butchering program poses challenges for a restaurant kitchen. As Mylan likes to point out, “One steer yields one hanger steak.” Few restaurants have room in the walk-in refrigerator for more than one carcass. But the challenges are what some chefs find most exciting. A certain kind of cook takes pleasure in the creativity required to figure out how to use a smaller number and greater variety of cuts. Buying whole animals means changing the menu frequently and finding deliciously persuasive ways to sell offal to skeptical customers. And so that nothing is wasted, cooks are constantly experimenting with charcuterie.

An additional challenge is finding trained staff. Butchering is a dying art, and restaurants that want to buy meat before it is hung usually have to train someone to do it. Moore spends a lot of time teaching his cooks how to break down carcasses, time that could be spent tending to many other urgent kitchen tasks or prepping duties. Training cooks to cut meat also means that along the way, a lot of the butchering is, well, butchered.

Fortunately, as more chefs and restaurant diners realize what extraordinary meat comes from animals raised the right way, more farmers will be willing to provide it.


This article originally appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of JBF Notes, the James Beard Foundation member newsletter. Don't miss out on future articles; become a member today!