Biancardi Meats

Profile

Biancardi's is that throwback butcher shop that some home cooks dream about: a large, sparkling-clean, tile-covered shop filled to the brim with all things meat. Trimmed cuts of lamb, beef, pork and veal are arrayed alongside stacked rows of harder-to-find items like quail, rabbit and pheasant. And of course, as a shop indebted to southern Italy, Biancardi's offers lots of coiled, freshly-ground sausages, yards of glittering honeycombs of tripe, house-cured pancetta, tubs of sweetbreads and brains, and even the occasional glaring goat's head. Humming with a passel of busy butchers and avid shoppers looking for special cuts or oven-ready items like rolled beef braciole and stuffed chicken breasts, this long-standing store (in the same family since the 1930s) can be daunting for first-timers, as butchers seem to know every customer's name, history and trimming preferences. Newbies will want to become regulars soon after they discover the high quality is paired to near-supermarket prices. — Jack Robertiello