Acclaimed New Orleans butcher Piece of Meat reopens as modern steakhouse

Leighann Smith and Daniel Jackson have spent the past four years defining modern butchery, garnering national attention for their approach, and serving some of New Orleans’ finest cured and smoked meats at their boutique, Piece of Meat. Now the duo embark on a new challenge: redefining the modern steakhouse.

Piece of Meat reopened Friday, April 8 as a full-service restaurant and bar, serving lunch, brunch dishes and adding dinner Thursday through Saturday. It’s been a butcher and counter since opening in a tree-draped corner of Bienville and Rendon streets in Mid City in April 2018, eventually introducing brunch and expanding patio seating, but sticking with service at the counter. In their first year, Smith and Jackson were named Chefs of the Year together by Eater New Orleans, and Piece of Meat was named one of the best new restaurants by Food and wine.

In early 2020, before the pandemic, business partners told neighbors they intended to expand next door with breakfast and introduce dinner. In the end, however, the reimagining of Piece of Meat did not go as originally proposed; they have given up on the breakfast place for now. “That plan kind of fell through,” Jackson says. “It’s been so long now,” he laughs.

Smith and Jackson closed the store in January 2022 to renovate the existing space, getting rid of the meat/salami rack that greeted customers at the entrance and served as a sign of what to expect (if you see any three-foot-long cuts of meat aging in a glassed-in room didn’t excite you, maybe you were in the wrong place). They added seating, upgraded and decorated the bar, and improved the decor. It looks like a highly imagined modern restaurant, if not your typical steakhouse.

A few aspects of the reopened restaurant evoke the classic steakhouse, particularly the side dishes served a la carte. These include the so-called Million Dollar Baked Potato, topped with crispy pieces of ribeye, herbed suet, sour cream, cheddar and green onions; as well as brown sugar carrots and roasted Romanesco. There are three rotating cuts of steak on the menu in addition to a 32-ounce bone-in rib-eye option for the table, roast chicken, and a seasonal fish dish; at the moment it’s grilled red fish with the skin on and calabrian pepper butter.

A few small plates flex the shop’s longtime muscles: homemade raw ham, steak tartare, beef shank gnocchi and marinated sardines. “The menu is meant to be succinct,” says Jackson. Clever steak toppings include bone marrow chimichurri and shallot, truffle or blue cheese butters, but perhaps the most unexpected are the beef tallow candles, which aren’t on the menu but rather lit for each table as part of the dining experience and served with toast.

Piece of Meat still sells a small number of specialty sausages and deli meats on-site, and will soon launch a meat subscription, “à la CSA,” Jackson says. It is open for lunch Thursday through Tuesday (closed Wednesday) and serves dinner Thursday through Saturday.