When Heather Tierney first envisioned her vegetarian restaurants, she wanted to replicate the skill of traditional butchers but for plant based foods as opposed to meat. “We wanted to explore every part of the plant kingdom, to really know produce and how to best use it, just as butchers know and work with meat,” says the ethereal blonde. “We chop, fillet and carve fresh produce into delicious meals.”
And that she does in all five of The Butcher’s Daughter Los Angeles and New York City locations — including the newest in West Hollywood.
More recently, Tierney added the economical Breakfast Club and Sunday Sauce to the lineup in WeHo.
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The Breakfast Club is a clever way to satisfy the daily influx of both leisure and working customers flocking to the bright café to start their day. Laid out across the bar in the WeHo branch is a stack of mini vegan and gluten-free muffins ($9) and an array of fresh pressed juices ($10). Twinkling with good health, their bright colors catch the morning light.
Or, if you’re hungry for something more substantial, opt for the All-Inclusive Breakfast Bar ($28). Compared to expensive breakfast buffets catering to hotel business travelers, it’s a stellar deal. Daily selections of juices and smoothies are available, as are the full range of coffees, teas and matcha. The Mediterranean Breakfast with whipped feta, pita, marinated tomatoes, cucumbers and olives gets breakfast eaters off to a very veggie start as does the Market Frittata, brimming with the bounty of spring.
If you miss lox and bagels, try their version made with smoked carrot “lox” with all the trimmings on a house-made bagel. There’s more, including à la carte sides.
Take a seat in the pastel-hued dinning room or on the always FULL front porch for a quick bite or an unhurried meal. Chic retailers, creative types and ladies and gents taking breakfast meetings are feeling better for a guilt free jumpstart on the day. The Lulu-moms stream in after school drop off, taking a moment for themselves.
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We also love the idea of The Butcher’s Daughter’s vegetarian Sunday supper, called Sunday Sauce, an homage to the Italian-American tradition of simmering a red sauce all day for Sunday dinners (known as “Sunday Gravy”). It reminds us of the often-neglected habit of eating together at the end of a week and how, while we may not be living in a Rockwell painting, we still yearn for that communal meal.
The vegetarian/vegan menu will satisfy both hard-core vegetarians or the occasional plant based eater. In pricey WeHo, The Butcher’s Daughter Sunday Sauce and its three special-priced meals are a hungry penny pincher’s find.
The largest of the three options is Grandma’s Table (serves four, $125) with a bounty of Italian dishes starting with an aperitivo, antipasto board and salad; we opted for that. The antipasto board and the salad was an impressive start: The board included grilled sourdough, a big dish of olives, herb whipped feta and a beet prosciutto that nicely mimicked the meat version. The salad with arugula and thin sliced apples was huge and tasty and we kept dipping into it throughout dinner. We were all further impressed with the fried calamari dupe made from mushrooms.
Then came fennel au gratin, a sophisticated take on a humble vegetable that showcased the plant with an expert hand. We choose the white truffle mushroom pizza, which is everything a pizza should be: Crispy, with plenty of mushrooms bathed in garlic confit and cheese that tastes like cheese.
The pasta course is chosen from a list of three specials, followed by the vegetarian Meatballs Al Forno and, lastly, a bottle of Chianti.
They were able to accomplish the impossible: feeding four people an impressive restaurant meal for less than $150. We were gobsmacked and are coming back to try the other specials including For The Love of Pizza ($45) and Pasta and Natural Wine Tasting ($55).
Lily, the waitress, further advised us not skip their newest à la carte dish, the “Beef” Tagliata (limited quantities) with Chunk Foods’ plant-based “steak.” We hesitated to order it because we’re suspicious of the faux meats that are made with an alarming mix of chemicals, but she assured us Chunk is all-natural. Believe it or not, this medium rare steak — sliced and scented with rosemary, garlic and lemon — tastes like meat. Juicy, tender, meaty, it cuts like the real deal. Spun out of MIT labs and produced in Israel, The Butcher’s Daughter is one of the few restaurants in the area to offer the brand.
If you’re a meat lover and are wary of mysterious ingredients in other meat dupes, The Butcher’s Daughter and Chunk Foods will make even the most cynical carnivores pick up their steak knives.
Since its opening, The Butcher’s Daughter has been noted for exceptional vegetarian and vegan cuisine. Not ones to rest on their laurels, they’ve developed two new accessible menus and the best tasting alt-meat we’ve tried.
The Butcher’s Daughter
West Hollywood
8755 Melrose Blvd.
(310) 707-1630
Hours:
Everyday: 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Breakfast Club: Mon.-Friday 9 a.m. to noon
Sunday Sauce: Sunday 5 p.m. until closing
Reservations via Resy
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