Enter The Butcher’s Club

Chef Jeremy Ford’s new restaurant inside the renovated PGA National Resort is open for business

Chef Jeremy Ford at his new restaurant, The Butcher’s Club, at PGA National Resort. Photo by Alissa Dragun
Chef Jeremy Ford at his new restaurant, The Butcher’s Club, at PGA National Resort. Photo by Alissa Dragun.

Big things are happening at PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens. As part of a large-scale reinvention, the resort is unveiling a number of new culinary concepts. Lucky for hotel guests and South Florida foodies, one of those restos is The Butcher’s Club by chef Jeremy Ford.

A Florida native, Ford is perhaps best known for taking home the Top Chef title on season 13 of the hit Bravo series. Since then, he’s opened Stubborn Seed in Miami Beach and co-hosted the fun Fast Foodies show alongside fellow Top Chef alums Kristen Kish and Justin Sutherland. (The second season premiered January 27 on Tru TV; the first season is available on HBO Max.)

Now Ford has entered the Palm Beach County dining scene with The Butcher’s Club, an elevated, modern, and completely delightful spin on the 1950s steak house experience. Here, black-and-white-striped floors and wood-paneled walls signal a return to a bygone era, while beautifully composed dishes capture Ford’s artistic flair and playful approach to food.

Take the Gruyère cheesy puffs or the “gooey” black truffle jalapeño poppers, for example. These high-brow interpretations of low-brow guilty pleasures are the kind of crave-worthy bites that will make you return to The Butcher’s Club again and again. Heaven is a never-ending platter of Ford’s cheesy puffs or jalapeño poppers, washed down with one of the restaurant’s signature Macallan cocktails.

For every fried popper there’s an equally as enticing veggie or seafood dish. Ford earned quite a reputation for his crudos during his time on Top Chef, and his local fish crudo at The Butcher’s Club doesn’t disappoint. A marriage of local fish—red snapper in this case—with green chili buttermilk yogurt, sugar snaps, passionfruit, and cilantro, it strikes the perfect balance of fat and acid, finished with puffed rice that adds just the right amount of texture. The Kai-Kai tomatoes and burrata with black pepper, basil oil, Meyer lemon confit, and croutons is another winner. The best part: The staff made a field trip out to Kai-Kai Farm, and your waiter can happily share some intriguing facts about your tomatoes.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Butcher’s Club without meat. Start with some sexy slices of house-made Wagyu beef brisket prosciutto before selecting from a menu of “royal cuts.” Pair the smoked dry-aged Prime Delmonico with Ford’s Favorite Four collection of sauces, as well as sides such as a creamy, herbaceous spinach and a blue crab mac and cheese. Combo-bite fans will be very pleased.

When it comes to dessert, Ford gets some help from executive pastry chef Vanesa Beltran. And let’s just say, espresso milk ice cream is real and it’s fabulous.

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