From the moment you walk into The Piggery in Ithaca, NY, you will feel like you were taken back to the Old World and a blanket of comfort will surround you. Hitting up a local butchery is a fantastic way to get food and experience all wrapped up in one, and The Piggery has an abundance of all. Looking for a nice ham to bring home for Christmas or are in the area and need a quick bite to eat? Then stop by and have an experience unlike any other.
Brad and Heather are the owners, and they are ready to welcome you in the door from the moment the bell tingles. Get ready for a great experience for lunch or when you are ready to restock on some of the best meat in town.
How The Piggery in Ithaca, NY Start?
The Piggery in Ithaca, NY has an interesting start and is not quite what you would expect. The Owner, Bad, is actually trained at the French Culinary Institute and was able to learn the importance of using the whole pig, to prevent waste and to provide more options to the customers. It was in 2003 that Brad, on a whim, decided to go onto Craigslist in Berkley, CA to purchase his first pig. At the time, it was part of the experiment of working with genomes in California, and his wife, heather, was selling homes.
That first pig was sent to the butcher and they had it cut into primals, which included the shoulders, belly, loins, and whole legs that would then need to go through more processing before it could be cooked. That was when the fun began. Brad took on the task looking at different methods of processing the meat to see what he could come up with.
To start, Brad dried a lot of it, using an age-old preservation technique since he knew that he and Heather would not be able to eat that much meat on their own. They took it to the next level working with the skin, the liver, the head, and more. Over that time, Brad was able to make a ton of different dishes with the mat including pork chops, roasts, and sausages, giving him some of the experience that he uses today.
Over time, this translated into Brad opening a number of different butcheries around the country, including the popular The Piggery in Ithaca, NY. He and Heather work hard to find new avenues and markets to help share some of their message of not wasting the food that we have and more. Brad is currently working on a food blog and a new cookbook that will help people access all the different cuts of meat, like those that are used in his butcher, and how to maintain a minimalist lifestyle to get ahead.
