Butcher shops in near west suburbs?

Hi All,

With some googlingon this site, I have found many many suggestions for nice butcher shops in and around Chicago. For some reason, though, they all seem to be on the north side! You guys must love your meat up there!

Anyone have any suggestions for nice shops in the central west, say near Oak Park/River Forest?

Today, in particular, I'm looking for a nice frenched rack of lamb.

Thanks all!

Nothing fancy, but I've bought some good steaks from:

Villager Foods
1135 Chicago Avenue
Oak Park

A little further southwest, but accessible via Metra once/hour on weekdays, is Casey's in Western Springs. We've been going there for years for special occasion meats.

Casey's Market
915 Burlington Ave
Western Springs, IL
(708) 246-0380

Who am I to post anything about the west suburbs?
...but poking around elsewhere on LTH, I found a pretty favorable mention of

Blue Ribbon Meat Market
426 N Austin Blvd,
Oak Park, IL 60302
(708) 524-9766

I was VI's correspondent on Blue Ribbon and they'll special order Chiapetti lamb for you, but it takes a day or two. (Steve Chiapetti was the chef at Cafe Le Coq in Oak Park and his family has been wholesaleing lamb in Chicago for I don't know how many years. Answer to come from the wonderful LTH community, I expect.)

Whole Foods (a.k.a.Whole Paycheck) sells the same lamb for 1.5x+ what Blue Ribbon does. You can also order a whole leg or whole lamb from them and they'll dress it for you.

They're really nice guys and they're real butchers. They can roll cut a pork loin to 1/2" thick so you can stuff it with all sorts of goodies and roast it and if you want to buy a whole short loin or other primal, they'll age it for you gratis. Buy a short loin, call 'em up, tell 'em you need four steaks cut two inches thick and pick the steaks later in the day.

If you need frenched lamb racks on a regular basis, Costco in Oak Brook (and everywhere else) has frenched Australian lamb rack from Australia for $10 / pound. The lamb is generally very good and it's one of the few things Costco sells that's sized for immediate consumption by two people...

Thanks for the replies, guys. I've tried the Villager a few times before, and I agree it is OK, but not a destination location.

I'll be checking out Blue Ribbon next time I need some meat.

By the way, I ended up getting the lamb at the River Forest Jewel. Had to ask the butcher for it, but he trimmed and frenched a very nice 2lb rack for me. Was $15/lb. Looked much nicer than what Whole Foods was selling for $19/lb