Culinary Creativity | The Argonaut Newsweekly
Heather Tierney’s plant-primarily based eateries give nutritious fare in a classy environment

Heather Tierney, Image Credit: Amy Dickerson
Heather Tierney’s very first task out of college was as a foods author for Time Out New York, which gave her the chance to discover about the city’s foodstuff and beverage scene. She later owned and operated a cocktail bar and a Mexican restaurant with her brother that have been positioned future to just about every other in New York’s Chinatown.
Finally, Tierney grew to become driven by the motivation to produce a little something nutritious that she desired in her possess life. In 2014, she opened The Butcher’s Daughter, a plant-primarily based restaurant, café and juice bar that serves healthful vegetarian dishes with numerous vegan and gluten-absolutely free alternatives as effectively. They resource their develop from neighborhood and organic and natural farms, and characteristic distinctive seasonal dishes and beverages.
“I would explain myself as a designer who happens to individual bars and places to eat,” Tierney claimed. “I’m often wondering visually 1st and I understood how I required to structure my restaurant. I came up with the plan to have kale and veggies hanging from meat hooks, because when you make juice, you butcher and slaughter the deliver, and immediately after we make juice, it seems like there is blood on the walls. Butcher outlets are a dying breed these days, and I imagined an old butcher whose daughter became a vegetarian as an act of rise up towards her father for the reason that she grew up close to meat and bought fatigued of it, so that’s how the title came to be.”
Given that opening the to start with cafe in New York’s Nolita neighborhood seven decades ago, The Butcher’s Daughter has expanded to involve two additional places in New York (West Village and Williamsburg), a West Coastline place in Venice, as perfectly as a meals and juice truck that can be discovered at the Venice Farmers’ Industry.
“I had been in New York for a decade and was about the winters, so I moved to California,” Tierney explained. “I like California, precisely Venice, so when I moved listed here, I took a year off, lived on the canals and rode a seashore cruiser around. I at some point signed a lease for a room on Abbot Kinney and every thing just fell into area, it was intended to be.”
Although every single location shares a identical design and menu, they all have their personal unique persona traits and signature dishes as properly. Tierney also owns Wanderlust Style, a design and style and artistic agency based mostly in Venice and New York, and chosen all of the design and style factors for every restaurant.
“I generally pick just one colour that pops versus the neutral location with lots of natural woods and greenery,” Tierney defined. “For our Venice place, we employed a lot of indigo cloth to mimic the ocean. I also place in a 25-foot communal dining desk and counter stools, due to the fact I preferred to make a sense of community in which people today could come in by by themselves, really feel comfortable and interact with other folks if they want. Every time I open up a new area, I get to design the space and occur up with ideas for the food items and beverage menus. The creative method is what definitely drives me.”
Open for breakfast, lunch and evening meal, The Butcher’s Daughter serves a assortment of ground breaking and wholesome dishes that array from mushroom pizza and poppyseed waffles to spicy kale Caesar salad and the Butcher’s Burger. The avocado toast and vegan Pad Thai are amid the most well-known dishes.
Dessert choices involve citrus cake, chocolate matcha cake and cashew ice product, although the drink menu characteristics wellness lattes, chilly-pressed juices, refreshing smoothies, wine, as nicely as craft beer and seasonal cocktails such as the rosemary mule and the spicy mezcalita.
“My partner, who is a carnivore, enjoys The Butcher’s Daughter due to the fact he can go appreciate a margherita pizza with very good-high-quality mozzarella,” Tierney claimed. “Depending on people’s diet plans and meals preferences, we can also substitute with vegan mozzarella, cashew ricotta or burrata cheese, as effectively as a gluten-free of charge cauliflower crust. There’s one thing for everybody.”
Like all other eating places, The Butcher’s Daughter was impacted by COVID-19, but Tierney and her crew discovered resourceful means to pivot through the pandemic. In addition to increasing outside seating, on the net orders and shipping, they available Bodega Boxes: curated wood crates that aspect a range of refreshing create and other substances these kinds of as eggs, bread, almond and oat milk, new juice and extra. Bodega Bins are readily available for sale on their website in a number of themes like a Farmers Current market, Kitchen area & Pantry and Wellness kits.
“It’s unquestionably been a rollercoaster,” Tierney explained. “The hardest part was in the commencing when all people was dealing with the panic of this new virus, as properly as navigating how to hold the eating places open. We have been capable to use for and get a PPP personal loan, which was a big reduction. We commenced promoting our Bodega Packing containers, which have been extremely preferred as nicely.”
Tierney designs to open a lot more areas, together with 1 in LA as perfectly as across the United States. She is also searching to open up a site in a resort in New York as perfectly.
“Our manufacturer is a truly fantastic in good shape for accommodations since we can offer you individuals the possibility to consume and consume wholesome when they’re traveling,” Tierney stated. “We glance forward to growing but we’re not in a rush, we’d instead be affected person and wait for the right room. When persons come to our dining places, our incredible team tends to make them feel welcome and at household. I want folks to be equipped to feel like they can drop by at any time and remain as lengthy as they like. Some of our regulars come in a number of instances a working day – we have one dude that arrives to our Venice locale for coffee in the morning, then he’ll appear back again afterwards and study a script. Extra people today want to be healthier these days, and we like remaining ready to offer you them a put in which they can appreciate superior foodstuff and consume even though accomplishing a little something excellent for them selves.”
thebutchersdaughter.com
— Kamala Kirk