Butcher Bar

Astoria's first upscale butcher shop celebrates local, hormone- and antibiotic-free meat. Producers are listed on a blackboard, such as the Catskills' Slope Farms, where the cattle feed solely on a mix of lush grasses. Smartly realizing some people want their brisket pronto, Butcher Bar also offers café seating near the tidy display cases. Pulled-pork sandwiches and roasted turkey come on metal trays lined with butcher paper, but what's really off the hook, so to speak, is Bob's Burger, a blend of beef brisket and smoked bacon. The brightly lit, wood-lined space is spotless, the walls sporting meat cleavers, butcher smocks and a flat screen showing a loop of cows in bucolic pastures.