Anticipated Whole Animal Butcher Shop Beast and Cleaver Opens in Ballard

Meat lovers, rejoice. The anticipated whole animal butcher shop Beast and Cleaver opened in Ballard on New Year’s Eve, with a full meat case of pasture-raised local pork, lamb, rabbits, duck, and more. Owner Kevin Smith is a London native who has worked for the swanky, acclaimed steakhouse The Butcher’s Table and gets premium cuts from local farms, such as Rochester, WA’s Heritage Meats and Ephrata, WA’s Pure Country Pork. Customers can find terrines, porchetta di testa, and European style pâté en croûte as well, the latter of which Smith has been trying to perfect over the past six months — a pastry “crisp on top, but just set around the edge” with a texture “like a brioche.”

Smith will focus on the retail portion of the business for the first couple of weeks, but he tells Eater Seattle that Beast and Cleaver plans to expand to dinner service shortly thereafter, accommodating 12 guests on Fridays and Saturdays. There will also be lunch service on weekends, featuring a dry-aged burger with brisket. Those meals will showcase the shop’s best cuts and will likely include several small courses with fermented foods, vegetables, wine, and beer (a full calendar is still developing).

Like other hybrid butcher shops such as The Shambles and The Ruby Brink, Beast and Cleaver hopes to be a neighborhood mainstay where locals can not only get quality meats for home-cooking, but also hang out, eat, drink, and learn more about the process of local sourcing. And with friends like Tarsan i Jane’s star chef Perfecte Roche, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see some intriguing collaborations in the works soon.

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