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[REVIEW]
More than Meats the Eye Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions takes a chef’s approach to butchery in its new location — with delicious results Written by
CHERYL BAEHR Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions 2733 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood; 314647-2567. Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sat. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun. 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
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f you want to understand what chef and restaurant owner Chris Bolyard means when he says he approaches butchery from a cook’s perspective, you should try his fried bologna sandwich. As close to the thin, pasty, redsynthetic-casing-wrapped meat found in the grocery store’s deli case as canned ham is to prosciutto di Parma, the version served at Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions is revelatory. What would typically be thought of as throwaway cuts from breaking down a cow are transformed into stunning hunks of sliced meat with a rustic texture akin to a summer sausage. Garlicky, salty and about a quarter inch in thickness, the beef, pork and bacon concoction is stacked onto grilled sourdough bread with molten American cheese and rich remoulade sauce like an impossibly gooey grilled cheese. Chow chow, composed of pickled vegetables, and briny dill pickles take a sandwich that could have been overly decadent and balance it with their vibrant, vinegary taste. No mere culinary mortal could give a glow-up of this magnitude to such an oft-disregarded processed meat. To take such humble, lesserused cuts of meat and turn them into something magical is why Bolyard, together with his wife, Abbie, opened Bolyard’s in the first place. A Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, Bolyard never set out to be a butcher, in-
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
Bolyard’s now has space for even more tasty offerings. Pictured: Reuben sandwich, Umami Burger, succotash and tallow fries. | MABEL SUEN stead launching his career in finedining restaurants, including the acclaimed Sidney Street Cafe under James Beard Award-winning chef Kevin Nashan. There, Bolyard served as Nashan’s sous chef and was exposed to whole-animal butchery and charcuterie-making — skills that were personally satisfying but also opened his eyes to an ethos of sustainability and the importance of using the entire animal in a variety of creative ways. Opening a restaurant was always something he and Abbie had dreamed of, but the more he got to thinking about where they could make the biggest impact, the more their ideas coalesced around a butcher shop. In 201 , they took the leap and opened the original Bolyard’s Meat & Provisions in a small storefront in Maplewood, where they immediately garnered a reputation as the place in town to go for the highest-quality humane-
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ly raised meat you could find. A small sandwich counter was part of their operation from the get-go, but they had always wanted to do more than the space would allow. That realization led them to think about expanding, and when they heard that the former Dubliner building right up the street was available, they decided to expand both their butchery offerings and menu, turning Bolyard’s into a full-fledged restaurant and butcher shop. The new digs opened this past May, creating what Bolyard describes as a hybrid between the butchery work he has been doing for the past seven years and his prior experience cooking in restaurants. To him, Abbie and his staff, the differences between the new and old spaces are significant, but to the guest, the experience feels comfortably familiar. Like at the original location, the
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place is outfitted in white subway tile; a chalk menu, written in the same font as it has been since 201 , advertises available meat cuts, and the stocked butcher case still shows off the shop’s wares. At the new space, black and white butchery-themed wallpaper adorns the walls, and light brown leather stools line the front windows for counter seating. The center of the dining room is filled with spaced-apart tables and chairs, and additional dine-in space is available on the front patio. If the bologna sandwich traces an outline of what Bolyard’s is about, the restaurant’s other dishes fill in that picture. The Pig Pen is a wonderful, Cantonese-barbecueinspired dish featuring succulent pork char siu that is so slow-cooked it’s almost the silken texture of rillette. Earthy gochujang mayonnaise accents the meat, and sweet and sour cabbage cuts through the
