9 nice Bay Space butcher outlets from Santa Cruz to Berkeley and past

Lately, many people are transferring extra towards plant-based and planet-focused consuming, with Meatless Mondays increasing to a number of days of the week. So, after we do indulge our internal carnivore, nonetheless frequent or rare that could be, we’re very choosy certainly. We wish essentially the most scrumptious and humanely, sustainably raised meat we will get our palms on.

Fortunate for us, the Bay Space presents a plethora of artisanal and whole-animal butcher outlets to match any meat temper, whether or not you want a $50 dry-aged steak in your Valentine or paper skinny rib-eye for making bulgogi.

From Santa Cruz to Los Altos to Berkeley, these butcher outlets transcend the everyday meat counter to supply customized cuts, cooking options and even animal shares, which let you buy part of a cow or pig and revel in all the cuts at a cheap value whereas supporting regional farmers.

Marin Solar Farms, Oakland

A frontrunner in nose-to-tail butchery, this famed store inside Oakland’s Rockridge Market Corridor  is stocked with native grass-fed, pasture-raised and natural meats. Buy an entire, half or quarter animal — cow, pig, goat or lamb — and have it reduce to your specs as steaks, roasts, floor meat and even bones in vacuum-sealed packages. Nothing goes to waste. Tallow manufacturing makes issues like cleaning soap, fertilizers and biofuels.

Co-owners Dave Evans and Claire Herminjard function the final USDA-inspected slaugherhouse within the Bay Space, an authorized natural and animal welfare-approved operation close to Petaluma that works with California farming households who adhere to their strict requirements.

Particulars: Open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day at Rockridge Market Corridor, 5655 School Ave., Oakland; www.marinsunfarms.com

Grasp Butcher, Sunnyvale

Tucked right into a nook of the Cala Middle on El Camino Actual is butcher Usman Ali’s store, one which serves the South Bay’s sizeable communities of Indo-Individuals and different clients who eat halal.

Grasp Butcher hasn’t been open for lengthy — it opened in the course of the pandemic — however it’s attracted an appreciative base of shoppers in search of cuts of meat and sorts of fish that aren’t carried by generic groceries. When you prepare dinner from scratch, you’ll discover contemporary cuts of goat, lamb and rooster in a single show case. Wish to get dinner on the desk extra shortly? One other case options rooster items already marinated in tandoori, natural yarahali or lohari curry sauces.

Not a whiz within the kitchen? No worries — as a result of Ali and his crew are. Choose two of the 4 each day specials — possibly a rooster thigh curry redolent of pink and inexperienced bell peppers or a fall-off-the-bone goat curry — for the $10.99 lunch plate that comes with naan and rice. You too can order family-size portions of curries, tandoori, seekh kebabs and extra for takeout.

Particulars: Open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 1111 W. El Camino Actual, Sunnyvale; https://masterbutcher.us.

Schaub’s Meat, Fish & Poultry

An upscale retail middle isn’t the primary place you’d look forward to finding a terrific butcher, however meat lovers have been flocking to Stanford Purchasing Middle in Palo Alto for many years for simply that.

Wish to be part of these within the know? We now have two phrases for you: Fred’s Steak.

That is the coal-black slab of backside sirloin you see within the show case. A cult following has developed since patriarch Fred Schaub first developed the top-secret marinade recipe and process — sure, there’s a process; that’s secret too — and began promoting it at his butcher store in Los Gatos in 1960. Clients cherished how the darkish crust sealed within the juices of the meat. Lately you should buy a selection, prime or Kobe steak accomplished Fred’s technique to take residence for the oven or grill or indulge on the spot with a Fred’s Steak sandwich.

After you’ve acquainted your self with Fred’s legacy, try the remainder of the choices — together with prime roasts and housemade sausages — at this full-service butcher.

Particulars: Open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to six p.m. Sunday at 395 Stanford Purchasing Middle, Palo Alto. 650-325-6328.

The Native Butcher Store, Berkeley

Co-founded by a former Chez Panisse prepare dinner and employee-owned since 2021, this small, pristine butcher store with its white subway tiles and complete animal philosophy is a favourite of Ghourmet Ghetto eating places, together with Saul’s Delicatessen and Chez Panisse. Because it opened in 2011, residence cooks, too, have flocked to The Native Butcher Store for seasonal, locally-sourced and sustainably-raised meat. It’s a gold mine — and we haven’t even talked about the bone broth.

The Native Butcher Store purchases complete animals from ranchers and farmers, corresponding to Liberty Geese and Macgrude Ranch, positioned inside 150 miles of the store. All meats — from the porchetta to the English-style beef brief ribs — are pasture-raised, antibiotic- and hormone-free and reduce to order. The meat that doesn’t make it into the show case goes right into a rotating array of sausages, pates, shares, rendered fat and sauces. They even make cleaning soap and canine treats.

And since a lot of the educated butchers are additionally cooks, they’re desirous to share recipes and cooking strategies and often supply lessons (good day, Confit and Rillettes Making).

Particulars: Open from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and till 6 p.m. Saturday-Monday at 1600 Shattuck Ave. Suite 120 (entrance on Cedar St.), Berkeley; https://thelocalbutchershop.com

Dittmer’s Connoisseur Meats & Wurst-Haus

So. Many. Sausages.

Bratwurst. Weisswurst. Andouille. Lamb Merguez. Rooster Spinach. Plus about 35 different varieties, all made in-house at Dittmer’s, a Peninsula establishment for German goodies. The complete-service butcher store and deli was established in 1978 by Dittmer Bubert, who began studying the commerce on the age of 12 at his household’s deli in Hamburg, Germany.

He handed his abilities and recipes alongside to the following era. Lately, daughter Petra Silva and granddaughter Katie run the operation — and it’s an enormous one, numbering greater than 100 meaty alternatives, a lot of them onerous to search out.

European cuts and old-country recipes abound. For breakfast, Dittmer’s smokes bacon — seven varieties. At lunchtime, there’s leberkase, spicy Hungarian salami, mortadella, liverwurst and extra. For particular dinners, assume Germany’s well-known smoked Kassler Rippchen pork chops, Norwegian rib roasts and Danish pork loin roasts.

“We make every thing we promote,” Katie says proudly.

Particulars: The sandwich bar is at present on hiatus; when it reopens, strive the sausage of the day. Open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday at 4540 El Camino Actual, Los Altos; www.dittmers.com.

C & H Meat Firm, Castro Valley

Residence of the Oakland Kalbi — sure, that’s a registered trademark — this Korean-American eatery and butcher store began in San Francisco in 1982, lengthy earlier than the Bay Space’s obsession with Korean meals started. Lately, you’ll discover Mama Cho’s unique reduce of Angus beef brief ribs on the meat counter in Castro Valley together with prime, grass fed and natural cuts of every thing else it’s worthwhile to grasp Korean barbecue or Japanese dishes like shabu shabu.

Situated inside Lake Chabot Public Market, C & H’s pleasant, educated workers presents a dizzying array of marinated beef, pork and rooster choices, plus distinctive objects like house-made spicy Thai rooster sausage and even Kurobuta pork stomach. You’ll discover rib-eye sliced particularly for shabu shabu and paper-thin brisket for bulgogi and chadol baegi.

Wish to eat now? Seize some Korean-style tacos, burritos and fried rooster on the adjoining Mama Cho’s Kitchen.

Particulars: Open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Saturday at Lake Chabot Public Market, 18911 Lake Chabot Street, Castro Valley; http://chmeat.com.

Los Gatos Meats & Smokehouse

Discuss well-aged meat. The roots of this Bay Space butchery run deep — again to 1891 or earlier, when native hunters and fishermen would convey their haul to the Los Gatos Meat of us for processing and smoking.

For the previous 30 years, the Chiala household has owned the enterprise. They nonetheless deal with loads of wild sport — primarily deer, elk, wild pigs — as a result of, as daughter Jackie Rose notes, this is likely one of the few remaining sport processors in California. And if in case you have a hankering for alligator or frog legs or ostrich, they’ve obtained them.

The remainder of the enterprise is devoted to creating and smoking buyer favorites, utilizing pure, hormone- and antibiotic-free meats. Among the many bestsellers are the Tacky Bavarian sausages, the meat/bacon/cheese patties, the various sorts of jerky and bacon, together with the hefty sandwiches piled with smoked tri-tip, turkey or pulled pork.

Particulars: Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday at 575 College Ave., Los Gatos; www.losgatosmeats.com.

Barons High quality Meats & Seafood, Alameda

Open within the Alameda Market since 2005, this multigenerational, family-run butcher store has roots courting again to 1915, when proprietor David Samiljan’s great-grandfather, David Baron, opened Baron’s Meat & Poultry, a kosher butcher store in Brooklyn, New York.