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A new European-style butcher shop opened this morning on Sunset Boulevard, just in time for all your 4th of July meat-buying needs.For now, Gwen is a butcher shop. Come mid-July, it will also be a fine dining space, too. Gwen comes via two brothers, Curtis and Luke Stone, while Alex Jermasek (Belcampo) and Daniel Roderfeld (Eataly Chicago) are on board as head butchers. Both were busily carving up slabs in preparation for their official mid-morning opening when we stopped by earlier this morning.
The shop will sell whole animals—such as pigs, lambs, rabbits, ducks and chickens—as well as steaks, dry-aged meats, terrines, rillettes, salami, ham, bacon, pancetta, and more. Seasonally, they may offer boar, hare, grouse, squab, guinea hen and other more obscure meats. They also have a number of house-made sausages planned, starting with four today: breakfast, sweet Italian, hot Italian and a Mexican-style chorizo with roasted corn. And if you're looking to splurge, they've got what Jermasek calls an "absurdly marbled" wagyu from Blackmore in Australia.
So what should the meat-eating Angeleno get if they plan to grill out this holiday weekend?
"There's so much good stuff that it's really hard to pinpoint one thing, but that's the whole point of a butcher shop to me," Jermasek says. "You should ask someone behind the counter what's good. Give us a genre: beef, lamb, pork, chicken…"
But, aside from the wagyu, he does suggest a cut of beef sourced from Five Dot Ranch, located in Napa.
"We have a beef that's raised from pasture, and it's not 100 percent grass-fed. They do a grain finish at the end, and it just makes for their beautiful pasture-raised product. A lot of the time, you see a grass-fed beef that can be kind of lean and not really good on the grill, but this stuff is just gorgeous."
He also notes they have plenty of pork from nearby ranches and grass-fed lamb from Stemple Creek in Santa Rosa that's particularly good this season.
The shop will also serve coffee and espresso, and will eventually offer sandwiches to-go for the lunch crowd.
When the restaurant half of Gwen opens next door in a couple weeks, guests will enter via the butcher shop to find a beautiful space with glass chandeliers and a fire pit where they will roast whole animals. Gwen takes over the space formerly occupied by Mercantile and Township. The mezzanine has been closed off from view, but additional seating and a second bar is located there. Reservations can be made in advance online here.
Gwen is located at 6600 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood.
