Establishment combines dining out with trip to butcher’s shop
To the right, black marble floors give way to the open butcher block at Echo & Rig Butcher and Steakhouse, opening Friday at Tivoli Village, 440 S. Rampart Blvd. Immaculately butchered lamb leg roast, chicken feet and London broil rest among sprigs of rosemary inside a walk-in refrigerator, viewable to the public through a floor-to-ceiling glass door. To the left, black vest-wearing bartenders stand behind Mason jars filled with orange and lemon slices, and a glass breaking behind the bar, purposeful or not, signals the start of business.
Echo & Rig is the brainchild of chef and restaurateur Sam Marvin and his Los Angeles-based restaurant management team, The Goat, comprised of many who brought the oh-so-popular Bottega Louie to downtown Los Angeles.
“I think Vegas is looking for this,” Marvin said. “It’s a great opportunity to give people what they need.”
The last piece in the Tivoli Village dining puzzle is costing about $3.8 million to open, and will employ 140 people. Echo & Rig has taken 12,500 square feet of space at the center that’s devoted about 32 percent of its leasable area to dining.
Mornings at the new eatery will be devoted to fresh-pressed juices and protein shakes at the bar before it transforms into cocktail hour headed by mixologist Jason Wakefield.
Lunch offers patrons a chance to try a bite from the chartecurie counter that serves, among other things, a smoked chicken salad sandwich and butcher’s pot pie.
Across from the counter is the butcher block, complete with a viewing area for interaction with expert butcher Trevor Morones who will give patrons recipe ideas and cooking tips.
Each butcher purchase will be wrapped in butcher paper with twine, featuring a little card on the side that educates customers about where the cattle came from, who the rancher was and when it was slaughtered.
“You go home and you might have spent $7, but you feel like you’ve spent $107. You can be proud knowing where that ground beef came from,” Marvin said. “We put this in our bodies.”
Carrie and Fred from “Portlandia” would be proud.
The second-floor dining room with its open-air kitchen and expansive patio gives diners a place to enjoy specialties from Marvin and executive chef Aaron Oster, such as a quinoa salad, house-made sausage or steak. Here’s a tip: Try the bone marrow. “We want you to see what we’re using. That’s a big part of our restaurant, is you see everything, from the outside to the inside. We’re so excited to show you what we’re doing as opposed to keeping it away from you,” Marvin said.
Echo & Rig also has a pantry on its first floor stocked with goods: oatmeal, aged balsamic salt and bread and butter pickles among them.
“We’re here from early morning to late night and we serve the same menu all day, except for brunches. We do brunch on the weekends,” Marvin said. “We’re going to take it over the top.”
Echo & Rig’s menu prices range from $18 per person for brunch, $24 for lunch and $35 for dinner. The store also will feature pre-cooked food for easy home preparation, such as braised lamb shanks.
“We’re a value, quality, luxury brand, is how we look at ourselves,” Marvin said.
Patrick Done, president of Tivoli Village, said the center’s plan is to be the dominant retail and dining location on the west side.
“With the opening of Echo & Rig, I think we’ve now done that,” he said.
Tivoli’s traffic counts are up 30 percent this year over last, and occupancy stands at 88 percent.
“We really, I think, have done a terrific job of bringing celebrity chefs into the market off Strip with terrific food products,” Done said.