Côte de Bœuf

The dry-aged beef behind the glass at Côte de Bœuf is sold two ways. You can buy it by the pound and carry it home, or you can sit down a few steps from the case and have it cooked for you, once the small Ossington storefront shifts from butcher shop by day to French wine bar by night. That double life is the organizing idea: a working meat counter and a bistro sharing one address, one supply, and one narrow dining room. The cut a regular eyes at the counter in the afternoon is the same cut that comes back dry-aged and seared after dark, which is about as direct as the line between sourcing and dinner ever gets.

The menu opens where the counter does, on beef in its rawest and most cured forms. The Tartare de Bœuf au Couteau is hand-cut with the knife rather than ground, dressed with a heritage egg yolk and set against duck fat toast — the cleanest first read on how the kitchen handles meat. Around it sit a Terrine du Jour, Escargots au Beurre Persillé et Ail in their parsley-and-garlic butter, a Foie Gras Torchon à la Canardière, and Les Assiettes, the charcuterie plates that come straight off the butcher's work. Even a side like the pressed potato pavé arrives with Cantabrian anchovies, a small sign the kitchen is not coasting on the steaks alone.