Inside Dallas’ Temple of Cured Meats — How Macellaio’s Unique Approach Makes It Stand Out in the City’s Restaurant Scene

Much as a horticulturist has his rose gardens and an artist her paint-splattered studio, chef David Uygur has his meat locker. In the specially designed 60-square-foot space inside Macellaio — the still relatively new Bishop Arts restaurant he opened with his wife, Jennifer — he experiments with curing methods, concocts exotic spices and rubs, and fastidiously tends to various meats throughout the aging process. Some of them will hang there for up to three years before they are ready to be served.

“You can go anywhere in this town and have a steak,” he tells PaperCity. “But to have something that has been planned — from working with a farmer to get a specific pig to breaking it down and curing it in different parts for two to three years — you’re getting something that’s been in the works for a while.”

Uygur is fascinated by various countries’ traditions for preserving meat and the complex flavors that result from combinations of protein, fat, seasoning, and casing. Macellaio’s salumi menu offers traditional Italian meats like culatello and capicola, as well as basturma, a Middle Eastern cured beef spiced with fenugreek, garlic, cumin, and paprika that Uygur makes with a Texas Wagyu beef tongue or eye of round.

Beyond the meat locker, the restaurant provides an outlet for culinary freedom and creativity for the couple, whose first restaurant Lucia, just one block away, is strictly Italian.

“We love to cook, and we love to eat,” Jennifer Uygur says. “That’s the whole reason we opened a restaurant in the first place — and this has given us more room, not only to cure meats but to try new foods as well.” She describes the menu as a mash-up of influences from their travels, friends, and the freshest produce available in northeast Texas.

While the stars of the show at Macellaio are the salumi boards, the restaurant is not all tapas and small plates. It’s based on the way the Uygurs like to eat and entertain at home: a convivial smattering of snackables (Castelvetrano olives with cara cara orange and fennel pollen), shareables (hearty choucroute garnie that serves four), and lighter entrees (Manila clams with chistorra and focaccia).

There’s no common thread, other than that each is delicious and thoughtfully prepared. And, unlike an elusive table at Lucia — which has been booked solid months in advance for more than eight years — a reservation at Macellaio is much easier to come by (for now), as are the 19 inviting seats at the bar.

Macellaio, 287 N. Bishop Avenue, 972.685.9150, macellaiodallas.com