8 Things to Know About White Gold, April Bloomfield’s New Butcher Shop and Restaurant

Here comes the latest project from NYC-based chef April Bloomfield and partner Ken Friedman, the duo behind iconic West Village gastropub Spotted Pig. Called White Gold, the Upper West Side space does double duty as a restaurant and a butcher shop that will supply the restaurant and sell to the public.

The butcher shop portion debuted last week, while the restaurant half flings open its doors on Tuesday. (Post update 11/1: White Gold has pushed the restaurant opening back to sometime next week.)

Daniel Krieger for Eater NY

Here are eight things you need to know about White Gold:

— The butcher shop portion is headed up by meat masters Erika Nakamura and Jocelyn Guest, who are also co-owners in the project.

— Beyond meats and housemade cold cuts, the butcher shop will also sell bone broth, kombucha, pickles, and various sundries.

— Customers will be able to watch the butchers in action during the day, breaking down whole animals and cranking sausages.

— During the day, the restaurant portion will be more casual: Diners will order breakfast sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, and English-style pasties at the butcher counter and can eat inside the restaurant or take them to-go.

— A “hot dog happy hour” will be aimed at the young after-school crowd — with housemade hot dogs, of course.

— At night, the 38-seat dining room will be full service, with a meaty menu fueled by the butcher shop.

— The dinner menu will feature cuts that would be difficult for home cooks to manage, such as the “velvet steak, a lean cut of meat from near the cow’s knee.”

— The butcher shop will supply the burger blends for Bloomfield and Friedman’s other NYC restaurants, including Salvation Burger and the Spotted Pig (where the blue cheese-topped burger is the stuff of legends).

White Gold is just one of the ambitious projects Bloomfield’s embarked on recently: Earlier this year she purchased a former dairy farm in Cornwall, England, transforming it into a small bed-and-breakfast where on-site chickens, sheep, and honeybees help provide food for guests. Per the Wall Street Journal, Bloomfield also hopes to add a restaurant, bakery, and cooking school, inspired by places like Dan Barber’s trail-blazing Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

In the meantime, she’s still hunting for suitable farmland in upstate New York; that, along with her new butcher shop, would enable her to supply her New York restaurants with food that she’s had a hand in raising, taking the farm-to-table ethos and running with it.

• Bloomfield & Friedman Raise the Curtain on Butcher Shop/Restaurant White Gold [E]
• Chef April Bloomfield’s Country Retreat [WSJ]
• April Bloomfield Expands Empire With a Butcher Shop [E]