Established by co-owners Bryan Mayer and Michael and Jeniphur Pasquarello, Fishtown’s locally sourced American restaurant and bar provides some of the freshest dishes you’ll find in Philly. That’s because their venue has a butcher shop set up in front, and their mouth-watering entrees are butchered, cooked, grilled, and cured in-house daily. The boys of Kensington Quarters endeavor to support small, local farms by using meat that is free of hormones, pesticides, antibiotics, steroids, GMO, and animal by-products. This allows them to serve the healthiest and best-tasting dishes to their customers. Like the farmers they partner with, Bryan and Michael share the philosophy of raising animals in stress-free and habitable environments.
In addition to dinner, Kensington Quarters offers butchery classes in which participants learn how to debone meat, create their own herbs and spices, and execute various cooking techniques. Kensington Quarters also sources their alcohol, so grab a beer and a dinner reservation! Philly PR Girl had the opportunity to learn more about Kensington Quarters in an interview with co-owner and butcher, Bryan Mayer.
PPRG: How did you and Michael meet?
Bryan Mayer: Mike and I met over a phone call he made to Fleisher’s in upstate NY. I was the head butcher and teacher at their butchering school at the time. Mike was interested in learning more about sustainability and the art of butchering whole animals. I’ve been butchering since 2008 and before that had staged here and there in friends’ kitchens.
PRG: Opening a restaurant is an ambitious enough project – what drove you to opening a restaurant, bar, butcher shop and classroom space all in one go?
Bryan Mayer: The cooked aspect to a butcher shop is extremely important. More importantly is the ability for customers to taste all these amazing products we’ve sourced fresh, not frozen. Be it out of the butcher case or on a plate, we feel that it’s the best representation of our crafts: chef and butcher. Places like this have existed in Europe for generations. We simply borrowed from the master, Dario Cecchini, from Panzano. As for a bar, who doesn’t like to drink while they eat meat? We’ve taken the same approach to sourcing alcohol as we have with proteins and produce.
PPRG: For our readers who aren’t so health-conscious, what are the benefits of consuming hormone, GMO and steroid-free food?
Bryan Mayer: That’s a difficult question to answer… studies that are fair and unbiased regarding food are difficult to come by. As soon as one study is published touting the virtues of eating one way, another quickly replaces it, decrying its findings. This is repeated over and over. What we do know and what is undebatable is that if your diet consists of highly processed foods, you are more likely than not, going to be unhealthy. A diet should consist of whole, unprocessed foods. Fact! The GMO issue/debate would require a much longer conversation.
PPRG: Tell us more about the farms you work with and the livestock raised there. How do you manage the relationships between the growers, your shop and the restaurant’s kitchen?
Bryan Mayer: We are very fortunate to have a unique relationship with our farmers. These are either personal relationships developed by us with the farmers or ones shared by a great company here in Philadelphia, Philly CowShare. Whatever the relationships’ origins are, our knowledge and expertise allows us to constantly share feedback, and to source some of the best tasting proteins and produce the region has to offer.
Philly CowShare has also been an excellent partner in managing logistics. It’s an often forgotten part of this whole business. Animals need to go from farm, to slaughterhouse, to us. There’s a lot that needs to happen in order to make that run smoothly. Even more so, we set standards like only purchasing beef, sheep, and goat raised on grass. With that, we add a supply issue to the logistics one. Once all that happens and the animals are in house, it’s easy. Everyone involved here is an absolute expert in their field.
PPRG: What do you hope your customers gain from their experiences at Kensington Quarters?
Bryan Mayer: I hope they gain an understanding and an appreciation for what we do and their impact on it. When you make the decision to shop at the butcher shop or eat at the restaurant you’re more than filling your refrigerator or belly, you’re making a statement. You’re choosing to support local agriculture and a local business that puts transparency first. We “greenwash” nothing! We take agency over the entire process, and hope that through time, we can become a trusted source for Philadelphians who care about where their food comes from and what they are putting into their bodies.
PPRG: Now that your business is settling in, what upcoming events do you have planned or in the pipeline?
Bryan Mayer: I kind of hope we never “settle in.” I hope that we constantly have new customers and people saying, “I/we just heard about you.” We continue to push ourselves to learn more and to be better at our respective crafts. And with that growth, I hope new ideas blossom.
We’ve got a lot planned for the space and beyond. We’ve already introduced our butchery classes, which focus on practical and useful techniques. Stuff people will actually do at home. We’ve launched our dinner series with an offal dinner and goat dinner and our Chef, Damon Menapace, has many more planned. We’ll open our outdoor patio (once winter decides to leave us), and you’ll see a lot more collaborations and outreach into the community. We’ve had great fun working with the Free Library of Philadelphia and their Culinary Literacy Center and plan on working more with them in the future. We’re going to keep busy.
To receive the latest updates on these and other exciting plans in the works, be sure to follow Kensington Quarters on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!
