How a Seaside butcher shop is elevating the transparency and flavor of their products.

I’m a recovering pescatarian and vegetarian. It’s been five years now.

I was a non-meat eater mostly because of budgetary reasons. That said, when I did get the purchasing power to buy meat, I proceeded with caution. That roughly translated to me reading labels for buzzwords like “organic,” “grass-fed” or “pasture-raised,” or anything that would signal this animal was happy. That made me a frequent shopper of Whole Foods – a store with terrible parking and unfortunately steep prices – but labels galore.

So when I heard that there was an old-school butcher shop, run by Cantinetta Luca veterans Jason Balestrieri and Kevin Hincks, opening in Seaside, I had to investigate.

Yeah, yeah – their prices are comparable to Whole Foods and the parking is, well, mostly on dirt. But Hincks and Balestrieri have eased into the neighborhood nicely and are quick to remember customers’ faces and orders. More importantly, the meat they carry is steakhouse quality stuff from suppliers Devil’s Gulch in Marin County and Linda’s Tasty Pigs in Carmel Valley.

With that kind of red gold in their case, The Meatery takes great care in respecting their stash. There are no questionable trays dripping with gory water. There are no partially frozen items in their cases. Nothing carries that eerie bright-red tinge, a tell-tale sign of dye pumped into the meat. They don’t even stock that American staple, the skinless, boneless, tasteless chicken breast.

Even their ground beef stands out. The grind is rougher in texture than your plebeian 80/20 grocery variety. The fat and browner bits (aged steak off-cuts!) are large and less homogeneous. I formed my pound into burgers and topped it with salt before throwing them in cast iron.

Without any flame broiling, butter basting or Food Network technique, the end result was glorious. The aged bits did 90 percent of the work, providing a hint of funk and a rustic beef flavor. The instant I finished my first bite I was convinced I would never order another high-end restaurant burger. It was that good.

In the weeks after, I tried things like the rich house-made head cheese and rosemary-flecked melt-in-your-hand guanciale. And their New York strip (dry-aged) club steaks ($18.99/pound).

But there is more to The Meatery than just the meat case. There are also sandwiches like their pastrami, bahn mi and muffaletta. They’re priced on the higher end of the sandwich spectrum ($10-$14), and there are plenty of decent delis in the area serving creative sammies for a little over half the price. My waiting times for sandwiches have also ranged from 12-30 minutes – not enough time truly enjoy a quality sandwich on a tight lunch break.

What makes The Meatery truly accessible is the care they take. Balestrieri has told me, unprompted, where a certain animal was raised and what it ate.

So sure, sneer at the Whole Foods prices, but there is a tasteable difference. Plus, for recovering non-meat eaters like me, it’s nice to know how that little piggy did end up at the market.

THE MEATERY 1534 Fremont Blvd., Seaside. 11am-7pm daily. 656-8810, themeatery.us