Sharpening the Knives

A hardwood grill, spit roaster and oyster bar are still being assembled at Guild & Company, the forthcoming Williston Road steakhouse from the group behind the Farmhouse Tap & Grill [1], El Cortijo and American Flatbread. But co-owner Jed Davis expects it to open by October 1.

The 200-seat South Burlington restaurant will have an expansive bar and lounge, leather booths, custom lighting from Conant Metal and Light, and a 60-seat private dining room with a fireplace. A glimpse at the menu reveals porchetta, dry-rubbed whole chickens, legs of lamb, rabbits and whole fish, all of which will be cooked on the spit roaster.

Steaks — ribeye, sirloin and New York strip, from Laplatte River Angus Farm and Hardwick Beef — will be dry-aged and grilled over hardwood and come with sauces such as béarnaise, chimichurri and lobster butter. For vegetarians, the menu will have tartines, cheese plates and other meat-free dishes, such as roasted delicata squash crêpes with smoked tomato cream. Wood Mountain Fish will provide oysters on the half-shell, house pesce crudo and day-boat scallops that will be served with sherry and creamed leeks.

Davis says the beer offerings “won’t be as ambitious” as those at the Farmhouse, but there will be 10 taps in total. The wine list has been assembled by former Green Room bartender Alex Moran, and bar manager Michael Buonocore is putting the finishing touches on a creative cocktail list.

The flesh-centric restaurant is only the first step in the group’s master plan — the bedrock of which is Guild Fine Meats, a 5000-square-foot meat-processing plant in Winooski where master butcher Frank Pace [2] will oversee the breakdown, aging and curing of local meat for all four restaurants and eventually for retail.

Davis, who internally calls the plant “the commissary,” says that by this winter, Pace and his crew will be butchering entire animals, such as steer and pigs, and aging and curing the meat “for all of the stuff we love to do” — from Italian salami and saucisson sec to braciole.