Salt's Cure Cooks California's Best Meat

As a city built over countless acres of pastureland, it makes sense that Los Angeles has been slow to offer sources for local, sustainably raised meat.

But with Salt's Cure, a new restaurant-cum-butcher shop serving brunch, lunch and, as of last week, dinner in West Hollywood, L.A.'s eco-conscious crowd can now indulge their bloodlust with a clear conscience.

The blackboard menu hanging over the spare, wood-accented dining room is rewritten daily, the dishes exhibiting chef-owners Chris Phelps and Zak Walters' excitement for nose-to-tail cooking; charcuterie abounds. Examples: potted pork ($9), its sweet, clean flavor spiced very simply, the richness cut with pickled plums; barely smoked black cod, slices still translucently rare ($12), served with crackers and crème fraîche.

Ask the chefs about their menu–easy to do with the open kitchen–and they'll tell you about the animals they source: the forest of black walnut trees in Napa Valley where Tamworth pigs forage for nuts; their plans for turning a whole wild boar into prosciutto, chops and so much more.

And with such immaculately sourced product, the small butcher case is full of nothing but the best. A given day's selection: Sonoma foie gras, American sturgeon caviar, lamb loin chops and dry-aged New York strip steaks.

Salt's Cure, 7494 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; 323-850-7258 or saltscure.com