Weekend Continued from previous page
Joey Ada, right, Belcampo’s head butcher, stands behind the meat counter with his apprentice Patrick Siemon.
3s have an anti-inflammatory effect, so striking a balance in one’s diet is considered important, but hard to do. Another is that cattle should only be grass-fed for two years before switching to grain to fatten them up. Belcampo animals are kept on grass for 34 or 35 months, a full year longer than most farms. This results in meat with a richer taste and more marbling than is typical, Fernald said. Fernald, who grew up in Palo Alto, arrived at some of these conclusions after spending time in rural Europe and Africa, observing much simpler food ecosystems. She graduated from Gunn High School in 1993 and headed to college with clear interest in food, but not knowing what to do with it. After graduating from college, she secured a $20,000 Watson Fellowship for independent study and travel outside the U.S. to study cheesemaking in rural communities in southern Europe and northern Africa. After the year ended, she came back to the United States, but soon returned to Sicily to do business development and marketing for a cooperative of cheese makers.
“It was the first time in my life I had been in a place where it seemed like the poorer you were, the better you ate,” she said. People ate foraged vegetables in between ice cream and brioche for breakfast, raw meat and perhaps three pounds of fresh cheese each day. Fernald experienced a health transformation on this diet, she said. She lost weight; her energy levels went up; little physical ailments that bothered her before went away. “Coming from fat-free mania” back home, this got her thinking. She eventually left Italy and got involved in the Slow Food movement in the U.S. She worked with Alice Waters to organize the first Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco and founded consulting firm Live Culture Company to help small-scale artisan food companies become profitable. Live Culture introduced her to Todd Robinson, a client with deep pockets who was interested in meat, had some land and wanted to make a profitable play for some sort of sustainable, responsible business concept. In January 2010, Fernald developed the concept for Belcampo, pitched it to Robinson and he got on board. By November 2012, they opened their first
butcher shop and restaurant in Larkspur. Since then, Belcampos have popped up in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, downtown Los Angeles and Palo Alto, with another on its way to Santa Monica this fall and a deal recently inked in West Hollywood. “I’ve been looking for an opportunity in Palo Alto since day one,” she said. Not only does she have roots here — she grew up on the Stanford University campus with her two professor parents and her first jobs were as a paper girl for the Palo Alto Weekly and at Saint Michael’s Alley — she saw a gap in the local meat offerings. “I want this to become a great Palo Alto institution,” she said. This means Belcampo has all the standard stuff — New York steaks, trip tip, bacon, brisket, smoked ham, roast turkey breast, sausages, even hot dogs — and also the not so standard. Ask about Belcampo’s oyster steak, chicken giblets, matambrito, goat or beef tongue. The butchers behind the counter are knowledgeable, friendly and won’t make you feel stupid for not knowing what something is, according to Fernald. Each cut of meat has a handy card with
Dinner by the movies
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Q Mountain View Voice Q MountainViewOnline.com Q August 8, 2014
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