Meat Mavens

The supermarket meat counter is about to get some serious competition.

At McCall's Meat & Fish Co., which opens today in Los Feliz, you'll find Snake River Farms kurobuta pork, local eggs from Van Nuys's Kendor Farms, homemade sausages, and seafood from Tokyo and Hawaii.

But unlike most butcher shops, this one is run by two professional chefs: husband-and-wife team Nathan McCall and Karen Yoo, who've worked at restaurants like Sona, New York's Daniel and Arzak in Spain.

This means they know exactly where to source the best cuts of meat--and how to use them.

At the counter, you'll catch McCall waxing poetic on things like all-natural Angus prime dry-aged beef whole T-bone short loin, which most meat counters don't carry. But at McCall's, you can get it--as well as any other meats--custom-cut to your specs.

And when chefs play butcher, you can count on great cooking tips, too. When cooking steak, McCall prefers the more labor-intensive approach: Sear a rib eye in a pan (to control the heat better) with grapeseed oil, and then baste it with garlic, thyme and butter sauce before finishing it in the oven (click here to download the recipe).

After all, excellent ingredients deserve extra attention.

McCall's Meat & Fish Co., 2117 Hillhurst Ave., Los Feliz; 323-667-0674 or mccallsmeatandfish.com