Moriarty Meats Butcher Shop & Café Bar

Fresh Local Meats, Homemade Prepared Foods, and Weekly Specials

Western New Yorkers have strong options on where to procure the best pizza, wings, fish fry, or beef on weck. When I started hearing recommendations for Moriarty Meats’ version of this sandwich, I knew it was something that I needed to try. I had just been waiting for stars to align, to have time available on a day when the weekly specials included the boeuf on weck. Finally, the day had arrived.

The sandwich, served cold, features thinly sliced, homemade roast beef with melt-in your mouth tenderness, piled high on a homemade kimmelweck roll with horseradish mayo. This boeuf on weck was perfection. We heard a patron at another table state that this had been her first experience with the sandwich. What a way start.

We had previously dined at Moriarty Meats Café Bar, thoroughly enjoying what we both agreed was the best French Dip either of us have ever tasted. We had yet to make a purchase at the butcher shop, but that would change on this trip. Our plan was to go and let the offerings inspire us, after enjoying lunch in the café.

A chalkboard menu in the dining room provided a preview of the day’s availability before venturing over to the butcher shop. Still, we took our time surveying everything before making our decisions. Numerous offers of assistance were extended while we browsed.

We both admired a beautiful strip steak and Jeff decided to make that our dinner. Seared, sliced, and served medium-rare, we shared the steak with sides of roasted Brussels and some stuffed pepper pierogi from Barbie-Pierogi.

We also purchased a pound of beef top round, from which I made Swiss Steak.

Swiss Steak is thinly pounded beef, braised in a tomato and onion gravy. Many variations exist, some including vegetables such as carrots. It is one of my favorite dishes that my grandmother used to make and serve over her homemade mashed potatoes. Unsuccessfully I once tried to recreate it, but apparently used the wrong cut of beef. As a family, we have most of my grandmother’s recipes for the classic dishes that we enjoyed growing up. Unfortunately, the Swiss Steak one is lost to time.

September 16th, 2009 was supposed to be the day that my sister and I gathered at my grandmother’s house to cook Swiss Steak together and learn her ways with this dish. Sadly, she was hospitalized before this date and passed away the following week. For over a decade I’ve researched and saved various Swiss Steak recipes with the intention of trying again. It’s such a special dish to me, I was afraid of making another sub-par version.

I’m happy to report that armed with my beef top round purchased at Moriarty Meats, years of internet research, and the memory of a beloved meal, I have finally created a satisfactory replica of the Swiss Steak my grandmother used to make. I considered writing down a recipe to share, but I think I’ll leave this one the way my grandmother left it to us, to be figured out for ourselves.

Although the cuts of meat that we purchased were not out of the ordinary, it should be noted that Moriarty Meats uses traditional French butchery, using the whole animal and thus offers more variety of cuts than your standard American butcher shop. Some available cuts that interested Jeff for sometime in the future included lamb picanha, Korean [beef ] short ribs, and tri-tip.

The café bar is open Wednesdays 11-2 and 11-4 Thursday through Saturday. The butcher shop is open Wednesdays 11-4, Thursday/Friday 10-6 and Saturdays 10-4. You may also place orders online Monday & Tuesday for pick up later in the week. Presently, holiday preorders may be placed for pick up Dec 22-24.