(Bloomberg) -- Unless you read the small print on the sign for Hyun Premium Butcher Shop, you wouldn’t guess what the store’s specialty is.
At the new shop, on a nondescript stretch of Third Avenue in Manhattan’s Gramercy neighborhood, the glowing display shelves are more reminiscent of what you’d find in a Chanel boutique.
But here, the métier is beef, lots of it. When Hyun opened in late July, its refrigerated cases were stocked with nearly 1,000 pounds of A5 Japanese wagyu meticulously dissected into 50 specialized cuts by Korean-born owner Jae Kim. During the meat market’s first 10 days of business, Kim completely sold out of everything.
Kim, who had to close down the shop until more product arrived, says he was “very surprised” with how well his luxury butcher shop has been received. Now, the butcher and chef—Kim also owns the four-year-old, under-the-radar high-style barbecue restaurant Hyun on the edge of Koreatown—is awaiting his next beef delivery; he plans to have wagyu cuts for sale again in early September.
Japanese wagyu is the sweet, unctuous, and very expensive meat lauded for its tender fat-marbled flesh. It’s farmed all over the country, and is graded on a number of factors such as amount of fat-marbling, color of the flesh, and more. Wagyu is incredibly popular in the US; specialty shops, both online and in major cities, sell the beef. But the Hyun is America’s first butcher shop to import whole cows — butchered so they’re boneless — from Japan. In addition to selling hyper specialized cuts that are difficult to find outside of Asia, Hyun offers fresh meat (typically if you buy wagyu online it arrives frozen).
Not only is the Hyun selling some of the best beef in the world, it’s also spotlighting wagyu from a specific prefecture each month, like Hyogo, where Kobe is the capital, and Gifu, home to Hida wagyu from the namesake region, which is especially lauded for its intense marbling and rich flavor. (Kim says that each prefecture’s wagyu has its own unique flavor and characteristics.) And he’ll be offering a mind-boggling array of cuts: By the end of this year Kim says he will stock 110 distinct options; he also plans to buy larger quantities of wagyu in the future to ensure a consistent supply.
“He must be a magician to come up with 110 cuts” laughs Rob DellaPietra, owner of Brooklyn’s vaunted butcher shop and dry aging specialist DellaPietras Brooklyn, which sells 47 unique cuts of beef. Kim says he designed the 800-square-foot shop, which houses a lower-level butchering area that’s almost triple the size, with glossy black marble to look like a serene, high-end atelier.
The in-store shopping experience unfolds in two ways. There’s beef to go and beef to gift.
Like a typical butcher shop, locals can drop in to buy wagyu. The beef is precut and vacuum sealed, packed in custom the Hyun-branded boxes. All the meat—which is fresh, never dry or wet aged—is sold in half-pound portions. The price ranges from $38 for 8 oz. of the tougher digital muscle from the shank, to $68 for the tender and prized Chateaubriand. All the beef is preserved via a proprietary vacuum-seal packaging system.
On the shop’s right side, a retail counter doubles as a gift-buying and wrapping station, inspired by the Japanese custom of giving premium ingredients, like fruit, as presents. Here, customers can curate three or six piece wagyu sets which is then arranged in a wooden box bundled in a silk bojagi (a traditional Korean wrapping cloth) with an ornamental tassel. All the beef comes with directions for cooking the meat Korean BBQ style, linen-wrapped ice packs and a custom insulated bag for transport.
When the Hyun is open, it sells beef at the shop and via local delivery. By the end of September, Kim plans to launch an e-commerce website to ship nationwide and says he’ll offer wholesale service later this fall.
Kim was inspired to open the Hyun by barbecue restaurants in Korea that sell very specialized cuts of beef highlighting singular flavors and textures. That happens to align with the popularity of Korean beef spots in New York such as Cote Korean Steakhouse. Kim is betting that city residents are ready for top-of-the-line steaks at home, or as a luxe gift for a beef-loving friend.
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