Where's the Beef? Being Butchered in the Kitchen

Brooklyn eatery Marlow & Sons gets its pork by the pig and beef by the half-ton steer, and it's not alone in its whole-hog approach. A growing number of restaurants are sidestepping industrial meat all together, instead butchering entire carcasses right on the premises. There's some of the old "if you want something done right" mantra involved, but also a question of convenience, reports the New York Times.

For many of the small, local farms that the best New York restaurants like to buy from, delivering whole animals is simply easier. While the restaurants see the benefits of choosing their own cuts and knowing that all their beef is grass-fed, there are challenges as well. "When you start talking about the head, the feet, the knuckle, you need to get creative," says one chef.
(More meat stories.)