Publican Quality Meats, a Fantastic Local Market, Opens

Grid View

• Welcome to Publican Quality Meats
• Looking into the shop from the front door
• The sign says it all
• Oils, vinegars, hot sauce, canned octopus, Milk & Honey granola and more
• Paul Kahan slicing fresh house-baked bread
• Kahan holding court
• These meats were cured in house
• Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb
• Is is a meat storage or aging room? A little of both

[Photo: Jason Little]

Not unlike when they opened the Publican, Big Star or avec, One Off Hospitality Group on Monday drew a steady flow of people eager to check out the opening of its latest project, Publican Quality Meats. Having been kept under wraps for months, all anyone knew was that it was going to be a butcher shop that would bake bread on site and sell sandwiches. It's all that, but so much more.

PQM is, honestly, a gorgeous butcher shop. But it's also an eatery, a gourmet market and a cafe. The space, with high ceilings and a clean blue and white color palette, features numerous cases of beautiful cuts of beef, poultry, charcuterie, sausages, cheese and more. Shelves are filled with artisan olive oil, Bill Kim's Belly Sauces, Milk & Honey granola, jars of cornichons, mustards, canned tomatoes, farm fresh eggs and a variety of other fantastic finds. Refrigerators in the back house produce, containers of housemade stocks (beef, chicken, etc), pizza, sodas ... this is what a neighborhood market should be.

Downstairs is where the magic happens. A wide open clean room houses the butchering equipment, bread ovens, giant stock pots, burners and other great tools for the chefs to use. A 7 x 12 stainless steel table serves multiple purposes, but co-owner Paul Kahan said that it will also be the location for dinners, butchering classes and other events. When that will start? Well, let's just say PQM just opened and they'd like to get their footing.

A sizable walk-in cooler has a door with windows to display aging meats. On this first day, the cooler held a pair of head-on lamb, quarter steers, pig's heads, rib eye and New York strip steaks, veal, duck, Spanish smoked chorizo, pancetta and more. The meats, mostly butchered in house, come from farms including Slagel and Faith's Farm.

Back upstairs, while the butcher shop and market are open, it won't be until next week when PQM starts serving sandwiches and other prepared food. But you can go in now and get a coffee or espresso from the barista, which on Monday was Kahan himself, serving PQM's own Lucifer Blend from Intelligentsia. Having the coffee will help you focus when you get overwhelmed with everything you'll no doubt want to buy.
· Publican Quality Meats Opening in February [~EChi~]