The Swinery: With a Name Like That, It’s Got to be Good
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It had me at the name, that rustic, weatherbeaten sign set out on the sidewalk as I drove by. The Swinery is a little mom & pop shop that you immediately recognize as a unique find. It stands alone in its own small building, with a tiny storefront, side courtyard with a covered kitchen and a scattering of old tables. A pit smoker sits out back.
Inside, the joint is equally unpretentious, with kid-drawn Swine Art taped on the walls, guarded by an eclectic array of pig figures along the top of the glass counter. Old pots and pans hang from an iron rod along the wall above the butcher counter. The Swinery is the butcher shop that those of the Boomer age have never stopped searching for. For a meat lover it is the picture of perfection or, as Owners Kim Léveillé and Danny Rogers like to say, a Temple of Porcine Love.
Don’t let the chill, down home look and feel of this place deceive you, however, because these guys are serious about their butchery and cooking business. Everything is made from scratch in the back and they spare no effort at procuring the best quality meat and cooking it to perfection. Eyeing the array of items, it’s hard not to drool and dream. Gorgeous cuts of pork, beef and lamb, trimmed, frenched, rolled and laid out in the glass cabinet. In the back they smoke and cure meats, grind, spice and stuff their own sausage.
But perhaps what the Swinery is best known for are their sandwiches. They are the things that cause lines to form out on the street; the things that keep Kim and Danny and their small crew of 3 constantly running in the kitchen. It is the sandwiches that make customers wax nostalgically over their last meal there and plan excitedly for their next. Here one can choose from a select list of hand-crafted options from pulled pork combined with crispy pork belly and cured ham, to smoked, roasted, or cured meats in special homemade sauces, cheeses, fresh greens and with a variety of breads and rolls. Not to mention the Swinery Burger, argued by many to be Seattle’s best.
My most recent foray into this pork palace was to try their Philly Cheesesteak. Now, I’ve spent many years living and eating in Philadelphia and I know all about the famous cheesesteak and the never ending Pat’s vs Geno’s cheesesteak wars in South Philly. So when I see “Philly Cheesesteak” on a menu all the way over on the West Coast I am inevitably suspicious. Even at The Swinery I looked at Chef Kim funny when she suggested I give theirs a try since on several previous trips to her place I had avoided it because, y’know, Philly…
But at the Swinery the cheesesteak takes on a new meaning and — sorry my Philly friends — beats the brotherly love out of that city’s version. It starts with a large, soft roll that is something more than a hoagie and less than a ciabatta. Onto this goes a smear of the hallowed Swinery Sauce, followed by slices of high-quality beef hand cut by Danny to order. When I spotted on the butcher table the large strap of beef from which Danny had just hand-cut my portion I knew my sandwich would be special — no deli slicer strips of semi-frozen mystery meat here! Instead of being slapped on a flat top, the meat was gently sauteed in a skillet to a perfect mid-rare. While the meat cooked Danny made the cheese sauce — similar in appearance to that fearsome whiz-in-a-can — but made fresh from a block of local cheddar and his blend of extras. Glistening onions and roasted red peppers sizzled on the side, waiting to top the cheese. The tenderness and fresh flavor of the sandwich, with the excellent beef and made-to-order additions gave a refreshing gourmet meaning to the ready-in-a-second Philly namesake. It was a sublime cheesesteak experience unlike anything from back East.
Kim and Danny are the perfect people to operate the Swinery and they appreciate it every day. It started when Kim, fresh out of Cordon Bleu, took on a cooking stage at the Swinery butcher shop and kitchen to gain some hands-on experience. After six weeks of unpaid apprenticeship, she stayed on because she wanted to learn more. The then-owners couldn’t pay her, but agreed to Kim’s proposal that, when the day came to sell the operation, they would sell it to her. And so within a couple of years of learning everything about butchering animals and running the place, Chef Kim became the proud owner. Shortly thereafter, she and Danny married and solidified The Swinery’s reputation as the quintessential Mom and Pop meat shop.
Sometimes when writing a Foodwalkers post I want to stray from the target short piece and write something long about a place. The Swinery is one of those places and there is so much more to say. And I can’t wait to go back to that porcine palace to cover — and eat — it all.
The Swinery. 3207 California Ave, Seattle
