BUTCHER + BEAST, THE BOOK

Nearly a year ago, on a cool October Sunday, we crowded into the back room at the Beatrice Inn and passed each other bites of Chef Angie Mar’s famously luxurious 45-day dry-aged Beatrice Burger. Johnny Miller captured it all on instant film. There was a purpose to our gathering there, we were shooting scenes for Angie’s book, Butcher + Beast: Mastering the Art of Meat, but it was hardly a choreographed affair. Chef stepped out of the kitchen in a full-on fur coat, carrying a platter of juicy burgers and no further direction was needed. Angie Mar and her restaurant have that effect; they don’t just set the mood, they are the mood.
 
More than a dining room, the Bea is an incarnation and amalgamation of Mar’s personal style and core beliefs: meat should be aged, heels should be worn, passion, pleasure, and hustle are round-the-clock pursuits. She pays credit to the culture of New York City as her influence and enabler, but her book begs the question: what is New York City without those like Angie Mar? At The Beatrice Inn she’s bottling up the grit and glamour of New York City and serving it on a silver platter.
 
  

 
view recipe feature in Artful Living Magazine
view photo feature in WWD

“My creative process begins on a piece of paper. Instead of basing a dish or a menu around a singe ingredient, I begin with an idea, which might be a word, an emotion, a piece of art, or a fashion collection. My inspiration has nothing to do with actual ingredients or Mother Nature’s willingness to make them available at a certain time of year…This process is precious and personal to me; it evokes where I am and how I feel in my life at the time.”

- Angie Mar  

“New York has welcomed me, embraced my oddities, fed my neuroses, and nurtured my creativity. What I have always loved about New York is that its inhabitants come from all walks of life and it embraces us all regardless.”

- Angie Mar  
 
 
All photography by Johnny Miller,
styled by Annebet Duvall and published by Clarkson Potter Publishers.