Serious Business Butcher Shop
Publican Quality Meats (PQM) is the latest offering in the Paul Kahan Empire. Opened about 8 months ago, it adds vertical integration to the current repertoire of Blackbird (fine dining), Avec (small plates and wine), Publican (oysters, pork and beer), Big Star (tacos and whiskey), and The Violet Hour (elevated bar food and cocktails). This butcher shop now “supplies” a portion of the restaurants’ needs.
I am an admitted fan of every one of his restaurants, but when PQM opened I was especially intrigued. This is a butcher shop AND a restaurant, all in one, AND open at lunch. It seems these are a new trend in Chicago – Bread and Wine, City Provisions, Z&H Market Café, Southport Grocery, and the original, one and only, Gio’s Café.
With PQM, the butcher shop is serious business however. Almost everything in the shop is butchered and made in-house – we are talking sausages, salamis, pates, smoked fishes, breads, plus they dry-age a bunch of meats in their basement. All the meats are locally sourced and labeled by farmer – so cured dried salami there might be called “Salt-cured air-dried Faith’s Farm pork tenderloin.” That way you even know the type and provenance of meat used before it got turned into sausage. As a butcher shop, PQM excels. I have found no better butcher shop closer than Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor. You can snag everything from house made headcheese to an in-house 100 day dry-aged standing rib roast. Plus nifty sea-salts and sauces and canned goods make it a home cook’s paradise of sorts, albeit a pricey one.
As a restaurant, it is much more straightforward, but in the best way possible. One thing I have found is that if you only do a dozen things, but you do them all spectacularly, then you are going to be around for a long time. I’ll take a dozen can’t-miss choices over a fifty item menu of average choices any day of the week. With this in mind, generally PQM has two soups, two salads, a few sides, a daily charcuterie/cheese board, and six to eight sandwiches. The menu changes fairly frequently.
The soups are outstanding. I have tried four different ones – a minestrone-type, an Italian bean-type, a summer chilled-type, and a New England chowder-type – and each have been different and truly astonishing. For example, on a recent chilly fall day, the patron beside me tucked into his chowder and stated “Oh, that’s the best soup I ever had,” and ordered another. Therefore I ordered it – a crab chowder, and I felt like I was visiting the coast. Thick pieces of crab meat, tons of fennel and potato, a good portion of cream mixed with that umami fish broth goodness. They change all the time though so you just have to trust that they will be good, and so far they have been wonderful.
They recently dropped my favorite sandwich – the “Better than a Gyro” – which may have been the best sandwich in the city. But the “PB&L” is getting rave reviews too – pork belly and lamb sausage on a lobster roll with feta and cilantro. The two crudo-style fish sandwiches I had on other occasions were excellent. The charcuterie board is a fantastic deal and a decadent lunch that comes with toast points, mustards, and house pickles of various colors and flavors.
I wish I lived nearby because I might have lunch at PQM 3 or 4 times a week if I did. There is not a single thing I have tried that was a dud. And you simply can’t beat the price. The soups are $3 to $5 (except the chowder, which is more), the sandwiches are all $10 give or take, and the charcuterie – at $15 to $20 – is a decadent and substantial lunch as mentioned above. Paul Kahan strikes gold again.
Publican Quality Meats
825 W. Fulton Market Street
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 445-8977
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