This Boca Raton butcher shop is making some of the county's best sandwiches

A new Palm Beach County specialty meat shop from a seasoned chef-turned-butcher is quickly becoming one of the area's most popular lunch spots.

Cameron Falls opened Beauregard's Fine Meats & Butchery in Boca Raton's Winfield Plaza in April, taking over the space formerly occupied by Artful Dodger Bar and Grill. For weeks, the business has been drawing crowds of locals — not only for its selection of specialty meats — but also for its pastrami sandwich.

In just four months the business has slowly evolved in the most natural way: by word of mouth. From open to close, the place is bustling with the chatter of regulars, a scrum of local customers who came for the meats and discovered the sandwiches.

Falls, 38, has spent nearly two decades honing his culinary craft, from the hustle of New York City's fine dining scene to the agriculturally-fueled establishments of California's central coast.

Today, much of what he does is informed by his culinary past, the gestalt of which makes Beauregard's great.

"When I came here, I couldn't find a good pork chop, or high-quality local meats, so I had to take matters into my own hands," Falls said. "Beauregard's is a combination of everything I've learned during my career, and everything I love to do."

Chef-turned-butcher began his journey on the other side of the country

Falls cut his teeth at Lark, Seattle's long-standing fine-dining destination from John Sundstrom. It was there where he first learned to appreciate the relationship between farmer and chef, one executed by the occasional back door exchange of fresh-slaughtered lamb, mushrooms and spring onions harvested that morning, or fish just plucked from the Pacific for service that evening.

Years later, in New York, he cooked for Greenwich Village's Mas (Farmhouse), a French-influenced American restaurant with a familiar farm-to-table ethos. There, fresh ingredients from produce to chicken were sourced each Saturday from the local markets, a seasonal approach to curating chef/owner Galen Zamarra's ever-changing tasting menus.

When the nation's pandemic shutdowns forced Falls out of work, the chef — residing in California's Monterey Peninsula at the time — pivoted to adapt. His friend had a local butcher shop, and brought him on board. He found it had all the pluses, none of the minuses, of working in a restaurant.

"It was stress free, and I was able to do creative things, like butchering a whole animal, then turning it into charcuterie or pâté," says Falls.

In 2021, Falls relocated to South Florida alongside his wife, Gillian Generoso, a Boynton Beach-based primary care physician, and their young daughter. Instead of returning to the kitchen, he took a job in sales peddling meats, dry goods, and oils to local restaurants.

"It wasn't for me, but I got really good at calculating profit margins, learning how to work with purveyors, and got to know the really good products versus the not so good ones," says Falls.

Spurred by his desire to find quality meats and provisions — and his wife's encouragement — Falls made the decision to return to the kitchen, this time as an entrepreneur.

Today, Beauregard's fills the void of butcher shop and deli in southern Palm Beach County. The space itself, designed by Generoso, delivers a dose of anemoia for a bygone era, from the black and white checkered floors and display case stocked with meats to the tall wooden hutches lined with spices, sauces, and dry goods and a handful of tiny bistro tables.

Barn To Door Meats is Beauregards Specialty

Falls is quick to clarify that Beauregard's is a butcher shop first, a purveyor of extremely good sandwiches second. During a near year-long buildout, the chef dug into his research, traveling as far as Levy County to select the farms he buys from.

"Anything you request we can do. That's what we're here for," says Falls. "No matter what you're looking for, give us a couple of weeks, and I'll bring it in for you. Nothing beats getting meat from a farmer who just delivered a day or two ago."

Today, Beauregard's sources meat from over a half-dozen farms, many located in Florida. They include Chiefland-based Quincey Cattle Company, which provides both grass- and grain-finished, pasture-raised Angus beef.

The shop also carries American-grown Japanese wagyu from Jonesville's Marcinek Farms, a selection of A3 and A5 wagyu with dark, marbled meat and yellow ribbons of fat that Falls butchers in-house.

Various cuts are sold at reasonable prices, from tenderloin, ribeye, and shank osso buco to sirloin, Picanha, and skirt — even dry-aged cuts like porterhouse and Delmonico. The house ground beef is a steal at $13 a pound, a blend of upmarket trims that often includes tenderloin, ribeye, skirt steak, and brisket — even some wagyu. And the skirt steak — a long, narrow cut that cooks up tender and juicy — is some of the best he's had.

Falls is especially proud of his pork purveyor, a relationship cultivated for nearly a year before opening Beauregard's. Family-owned HertaBerkSchwein Farms delivers their pasture-raised Berkshire hogs bi-weekly. Slaughtered just days before their arrival, they're butchered in-house to produce rib and sirloin chops, belly, coppa steaks, Boston butts — even offal like liver, cheek, and leaf lard (the fat around the kidney and loin used for its neutral flavor, especially in baking).

For poultry, Falls looks to family-run La Belle Farm in New York's Sullivan County, one of three farms in the country that produce foie gras, but also their air-chilled organic ducks and chicken.

In addition to the meat, Falls also crafts a variety of housemade items. Products change weekly, and often include charcuterie, bone broth, bacon, sausage, pâtés, and terrines — even a slow-simmered bolognese sauce prepared with ground beef, pork trimmings, red wine, and porcini powder with a touch of cream.

"That's the fun part for me," says Falls. "All the creative things that I get to make using these amazing products."

A New York pastrami sandwich in Boca Raton

Despite its butcher shop chops, Beauregard's sandwiches have become Falls' most whispered attraction. Lines for his pastrami have been known to start as early as 11 a.m., and continue into the afternoon.

The sandwiches are simply the product of the butcher business, explains Falls, end cuts and leftover scraps he'll transform into slices of buttery-rich porchetta, tender roast beef, and ruby red slabs of pastrami.

"For me, the name of the game with this business is zero waste, so the sandwiches are just part of that process" says Falls. "There's no bells and whistles, just attention to detail, and really good quality meat."

The sandwiches are made-to-order on Sullivan Street bread that's delivered fresh each morning from the Miami bakery. Priced $16-$24 apiece, they evince the ideal that a chef needs only high-quality ingredients and simple execution to create crave-worthy food.

The menu rotates according to what's available, prepared with the help of sous chef Chris Zhan, who assists Falls in the day-to-day process of butchering, prepping, and sandwich making.

When there is leftover ground meat, they'll make a chopped cheese, homage to Falls' favorite after-shift meal, a specialty of New York City bodegas. If there's extra pork, it's used to make porchetta, the bánh mì, or Beauregard's take on a Cuban sandwich.

There's never leftover meat for Beaurgard's viral pastrami sandwich, however. Rather, it's a question of whether or not there's enough.

After selling out mid-week for several weeks in a row, Falls decided to up his game. On a recent Sunday he stayed late into the evening, cleaning and prepping 650 pounds of brisket to prepare for the week ahead — enough to make 150 pastrami and Reuben sandwiches each day.

The are of making pastrami begins with time

Making the pastrami is a weeklong process. Along the way, up to 85 briskets are trimmed, brined, and seasoned — even injected and rotated — all to ensure the proper fusing of flavors. From there the meat is rinsed, then rests for an entire day before it's smoked and steamed for 12- to 14-hours.

When it cools, the meat is so tender it must be cut in half-inch thick slabs, each slice portioned into 10-ounce piles to await the week ahead. Upon serving, the meat is steamed once more and served on toasted rye bread alongside deli mustard and a horseradish-spiked grain-mustard crème fraîche for customers to dip and spread as they see fit.

Falls' Reuben kicks it up a notch, the extra ingredients delivered with such apparent restraint so as not to overshadow the undeniable meaty star of the show: a single slice of Jarlsberg cheese, a thin layer of vinegary coleslaw, and just a touch of homemade Russian dressing piqued with Worcestershire sauce and kewpie mayo, but no ketchup.

You'd be remiss to skip over the Italian, an omnibus of imported Italian meats and cheese like thin-sliced mortadella, spicy capicola, salami Milano, prosciutto di parma, and provolone. It's finished with the sandwich's obligatory heap of shaved lettuce, sliced tomato, slivers of fresh white onion, Falls' proprietary Italian spice blend, a dash of Sicilian olive oil, and a whisper of vinegar. Served on Sullivan Street's answer to a hoagie roll with a swipe of optional mayonnaise (Falls' preference), it's a near perfect execution of this classic sub sandwich.

The real sleeper menu item, however, just might be the porchetta. To make it, the Berkshire pigs are deboned and butterflied into a single piece exposing belly, loin, tenderloin, and skirt. Heavily seasoned with herbs, garlic, salt, pepper, fennel, and chili flakes, it's rolled and tied into a giant circular roast, skin and all. Every few days, small cuts are roasted until the skin gets crispy, the fat rendering into the meat until its butter-soft.

Upon serving, the pork is sliced into paper-thin sheets that fold into a tangled mass atop a toasted ciabatta bun. The fragrant meat is matched with clarified butter, melted provolone, caramelized onions, a blanket of fresh arugula, and a sprinkling of pork skin cracklings that lend a crispy juxtaposition.

One bite, and you'll understand what all the Beauregard's fuss is about.

"I didn't really see any of this coming. I'm just humbled and grateful for the success," sums up Falls. "I didn't know if people would like it or not, but I knew there had to be a few people like me that wanted something like Beauregard's."

Beauregard's Fine Meats & Butchery. 497 NE 20th St., Boca Raton; 561-409-4783; Tuesday through Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; beauregardsfinemeats.com.

Nicole Danna is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at nicoleadanna@gmail.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Pastrami sandwich worth waiting in line for served at this butcher shop