“Jesse Griffiths knows what's important about food...that it's fresh, local and allowed to speak for itself. He's an old school chef with deep respect for the land, his farmers and purveyors and the food they produce and it shows through his cooking.”

- Chef Dave Pasternack of Esca

“Jesse captures the energy of the hunter gatherer in a refined and approachable way.”

- Chef Jamie Bissonnette of Coppa and Toro in Boston

Chef, hunter, fisherman, forager and butcher Jesse Griffiths is the ultimate DIY guy. Every Saturday, he sets up his Dai Due stand at the Republic Square Park farmers market, serving a menu of meats and condiments that he’s made with high-quality local ingredients. He serves everything from bratwurst, boudin, taso ham and chorizo to Southern-style pickles and small batches of home-made mustards. They also serve breakfast and lunch, cooked to order.

This month, Jesse is releasing his first book called “Afield: A Chef's Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish.” It’s catch, kill and cook with step-by-step photos and tips on how to break down an animal. From  gutting and frying fish to roasting a whole baby hog to curing wild boar pancetta. If you’ve ever wondered how to clean and butcher squirrels and rabbits, he gives what he calls the “sweater-and-pants” method, where you’ll only need a pocket knife.

The nose-to-tail recipes call for simple ingredients and are easy enough to make in the great outdoors.

Q & A with Chef Jesse Griffiths

Q. Tell us about Dai Due:

A. That’s a hard question. At the farmers market we call ourselves a butcher shop, but really what we’re doing is bringing any kind of local product up there and adding body to it. We are making everything from scratch. I’ll gather figs, peppers, blackberries, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes and watermelons and we’ll make 14 or 15 different varieties of pickles, preserves or chutneys. We make our own mustard. We also make a lot of value-added meat products like sausage, pates with the works, and things like that.

November through April, we do biscuits and gravy. It’s just such a heavy thing, but people love it. It’s a wheat biscuit made with butter cream and ground whole wheat, our breakfast sausage and then just plain gravy.  People go nuts over it. Every week we pretty much just do a rotating menu of items, it’s very seasonal.

Q. Aside from the market, you have a Supper Club that takes place at various locations around Austin.

A. The Supper Club is really where we started out. I was working at another restaurant here in town and I’ve been always been obsessed with the idea of what our traditions should be. Like what would happen if you only used what you get your hands on around here? That’s pretty much the concept in a nutshell. We hosted one dinner and it went really well. We’ve done about 130 dinners now.

Q. You’ve just released your first cookbook, Afield: A Chef’s Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish, which is a cookbook-meets-hunting and fishing travelogue. How did this come about?

A. I started on it three yeas ago, kind of casually. The focus of it is my love of hunting and fishing. It's pretty much all I ever want to do. The book is basically stripped down. Not something where you have a ton of money, with flashy off-shore boats. This is walking along the banks and catching fish. A lot of hunters don’t really know how to get things out of animals.

This book empowers new hunters and people who've hunted their whole lives, but need help with cooking game. It’s step by step photos and how to break something down. The recipes are straightforward and things people like to eat. It’s a myth that you can’t eat wild pigs, that they’re not good.

[Get the recipes.]

Chef’s Recs | Ingredients

 

Arrowhead Mills Flour

We don’t ever use a vegetable or meat or cheese or fish that wasn’t raised at least within Texas, or more likely within a couple of hours away. We kind of have like a frontier mentality, a little ‘House on the Prairie.’ The flour that we buy is organic, all-purpose flour from Arrowhead Mills, which is milled in the Panhandle of Texas. I can’t really tell the difference between flours for taste, but we try to go with organic products for our dry goods whenever possible.

[See details.]

Chef’s Recs | Austin, TX

Find | Markets & Food Shops

Callahan’s General Store

It’s my favorite place in town. They’re just like an old school supplies and housewares store. For instance, you can go there and get .22 rifle ammunition, baby chickens, ducks, some feed for your horse and everything you need to make a chicken coop and then all kinds of canning supplies. I think as far as food goes in town, they’re the ones that empower people to be able to preserve and grow their own food. It’s just an awesome store with awesome service and it’s kind of an icon here in Austin.

Antonelli's Cheese Shop

Nobody knows more about cheese than these guys. They’re one of the first shops in town to specialize in cheese and to do it exactly right. They’re extremely knowledgeable and their customer service is unparalleled. You walk in the door and they start feeding you cheese and they know everything about every cheese in there. Their shop is clean and well presented and you can buy the tiniest little piece of cheese from them. They make it a really fun experience because they educate people and they’re bringing in really high quality products. They’ve got a remarkable wholesale campaign where they’re out there selling cheese to restaurants and the restaurants have pretty much given them carte blanche to give them whatever. Any restaurant in town where you walk in that says Antonelli’s, basically means we didn’t even ask what we’re getting.

Salt & Time

Everything I’ve had from them has been really good. They’re really focused on cured meats, salami, prosciutto and pancetta. Their stuff is very good.

[See details.]

Chef’s Recs | Austin, TX

Eat | Restaurants

BBQ

Franklin Barbecue

I have to admit it’s worth the hype. You have to wait in line for like two hours to get it every day without exception. You have to get there 8:30 in the morning. They open at 11. If you get there at 9:30, they’ll turn you away and they’re not even open yet. It’s good, it’s really good.

JMueller

The brisket is really good. It’s just smoky and super flavorful, with a nice crust on it. It’s all about that part. People down here get real snobby about their brisket. There’s a good back story too, because Franklin pretty much apprenticed under Mueller. John Mueller’s just a cool dude, he knows what he’s doing.

Serving Quality Meat

La Condesa

I love [chef] Rene Ortiz, he’s a genius. I think that his food is the best in town, it’s so vibrant. Rene isn’t really constrained by any kind of boundaries. He’s a chef of a Mexican restaurant, but he’ll make kimchi and put it on a taco. He works with bright flavors very well. He’s takes what we consider Mexican food to be, very meat, protein and carbohydrate heavy and the palate he works with is a lot of acid and herbs and bright flavors. Every bite you take at that restaurant is sweet and salty and sour and savory and fatty. It’s cold and hot and textured. He’s kind of an artist. I get so excited if I go and eat there.

The pastry chef is pretty much in the same vane as Rene, with a brilliant composition of her plates and her desserts just blow me away. The team of the two it’s unstoppable, it’s wonderful.

Contigo

It’s one of my favorite places. It’s kind of ranch-style bar food and just really accessible. The chef is such a nice person, he makes pigs-in-blanket and hamburgers and stuff like that. I really trust him, he buys a lot of local produce, a lot of local meats. Very well put together.

Italian

Olive & June

They’re just like the best Italian food I think I’ve ever had in Austin. I trained in Italy and spent a lot of time there and their food tastes like Italy to me. I get a little upset with most people’s concepts of Italian food and this is flawless.

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Drink | Coffee

Houndstooth

They’re really nice there and I’ll tell you this is my favorite thing, because I can’t stand a surly barista. They offer you a very educated choice of coffees and if you want an espresso they’re going to ask you, ‘Which one do you want?’ They know everything about it. These people care a lot about their products.

Bennu Coffee

For a phenomenal pour shot.

[See details.]

Details

Details of chef Jesse Griffiths’ recommendations for where to eat, drink and shop in Austin, TX.

Recipes

- Smothered Boar Chops

- Tomato-Braised Turkey Legs

City Guides

- Austin, TX: Download