Clancey’s is Minneapolis’ leading butcher shop, any which way you cut it—and yes, those cuts can be made with the in-house band-saw, with which they disassemble many, many local animals. Kristin Tombers, the shop’s owner, works with farmers mostly in southern Minnesota to find those animals, and then she and her merry band of meat-cutters transform said animals into everything imaginable: fancy double-cut beef-porterhouse steaks, simple filet mignon discs, beautiful heirloom-breed fat-crowned pork chops, whole spring lamb legs, fat duck breasts, and also less-prestigious cuts, gussied up with chef know-how—fennel pollen bratwursts, brandied-fig pork sausage, lamb merguez sausages, allspice-flecked headcheese, coffee-ancho-crusted strip steaks, short ribs cut paper thin and given a sheer Mexican-marinade, and much, much more.
The narrow shop has become a standard stop on every ambitious Minneapolis chef’s culinary training (much of the meat know-how in northern Midwestern kitchens comes directly from Clancey’s) as well as for the state’s best sandwiches. Ever hear how butchers eat better than the rest of us? It’s particularly true here: The butchers roast their own prime rib, smoke their own ham, pickle their own corned beef, smoke their own pastrami, and bake their own turkeys for the sandwiches, made on Rustica baguettes, which change every day. They’re the perfect lunch to tide you over through a day of carnivorous stew-making or barbecuing.
