3 Bells For Butcher & Singer

Craig LaBan visits Stephen Starr’s Butcher & Singer and finds plenty to sing about at the red meat mecca.

Butcher doesn’t mess around with its signature commodity: The meat here was outstanding and perfectly cooked. This was especially true of the 28-day dry-aged porterhouse, which had a sublime tenderness and mineral complexity, even a faint sweetness, that wore just enough funk for a dry-aged connoisseur. Double-size it into a 32-ounce broiler-charred slab for two ($74), like the plump lovebirds behind me did, and indulge in a T-bone romance.

The rest of Butcher’s steaks are wet-aged, which I’m not typically fond of, but chef Shane Cash has mastered the technique (a little air-drying) to eliminate the common metallic aftertaste. Both the New York strip and filet mignon were exceptional. And the 18-ounce Delmonico, sourced from exclusive Four Story Hill Farm in Northeast Pennsylvania, was possibly even better than the porterhouse, with a buttery beefiness that revealed itself in waves of layered savor.

Three Bells – Excellent

Butcher & Singer [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Butcher & Singer [Official Site]