Local Pig: Alex Pope’s new butcher shop is coming to the East Bottoms
It seems like everywhere chef Alex Pope has cooked, he has managed to find a way to do some butchering in the kitchen. At the American, he lobbied then-executive chef Celina Tio to bring in whole pigs to cure prosciutto on-site. At R Bar — he ran the kitchen until June of this year — house-made sausages and charcuterie were menu staples.
So it comes as no surprise that his latest venture — Local Pig — at 2618 Guinotte Avenue will be a modern butcher shop slated to open in January — the kind of place where ordering whole hogs is the reason for its existence.
“Nobody else has done it yet. It’s like the pop-up restaurant. I know it’s out there in other cities like San Francisco and Brooklyn; it’s just not here yet,” Pope says.
