So.cial Butcher Shop and Deli reminiscent a of those found in French or Italian villages
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Sean Cousins, who runs So.cial Butcher Shop & Deli on Water Street, displays the mortadella sandwich. Photograph by : Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
At three in the afternoon, there are 15 people in the little shop. The tail end of the lunch rush is still wagging and will keep wagging until closing time at 7 p.m.
The reason behind the popularity of So.cial Butcher Shop and Deli at Le Magazin can be neatly summed up. It’s Sean Cousins.
First of all, he’s running a butcher shop of the sort you might find in a little village in France or Italy. Purchases are cut to your specifications and wrapped up in butcher paper and tied neatly with twine and keeping the customer happy seems as important as the quality of meat he buys and ages himself.
Secondly, the sandwiches celebrate his charcuterie, which changes regularly. Everything, except maybe the cheese, butter and mustard, are from scratch.
The sandwiches, made with yummy focaccia, are $4.50, $6.50 and $9 for small, medium and large. The latter could weigh as much as two pounds, so unless you have triplets growing inside you, you should share.
Recent offerings included lamb galantine, salt beef, turkey, capicolla but the meats change, depending on what Cousins has made. The sandwiches come with house-made potato chips.
There are other choices. The pulled pork chili, he says, is 99-per-cent meat with maybe a few scatterings of beans. That costs $4.
As well, there’s a changing menu of pats, soups and salads, which are often studded with fresh fruit.
Cousins is multi-tasking, to say the least. He’s the chef at the So.cial dining room across the hall from the butcher shop and deli as well as exec chef of Ocean 6 Seventeen.
He was also trying to get a farmers’ market up and running in the alley behind Le Magazin warren of shops but it’ll have to wait until next year, he says.
The So.cial restaurant, butcher and deli has revived the charming and vintage Le Magazin cluster of shops.
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SO.CIAL BUTCHER SHOP AND DELI
332 Water St., 604-669-4488
www.socialatlemagasin.com
