He's the guy behind some of the country's most acclaimed steaks and burgers, a butcher held in such high regard by so many top chefs that he'll have his own reality TV show.
But New York's most famous meat man, Pat LaFrieda III, cringes at the term "celebrity butcher."
"Whenever anyone says that to me, I tell them, come here at night; you work with us, and you tell me how glamorous this is," LaFrieda says, watching dozens of workers cut, grind and package raw meat in a 29-degree room. "When they come and they have to do it all night long in the cold and stand at these tables with these men …"
Point taken. And anyway, New York's most famous meat man is also a New Jersey guy now.
A Ridgefield resident since 1999, LaFrieda packed up his third-generation Manhattan butcher wholesale company in the spring of 2010 and moved to a custom 35,000-square-foot building in North Bergen near the Lincoln Tunnel — "the best thing we've ever done." The $7 million expansion quickly doubled the company's business, putting meat that was mostly confined to well-known kitchens (from Shake Shack to Mario Batali's spots) into more retail stores and a growing number of New Jersey restaurants.
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