Located in University District, Charcut’s newest restaurant extends the philosophy that has defined the kitchen of chefs Connie DeSousa and John Jackson since the restaurant first opened in 2010: an unpretentious approach to cooking rooted in whole-animal butchery, local sourcing, and craft.

Conceived as a spatial analogue to butchery itself, the restaurant is understood as a unified whole, where distinct spaces, like the cuts of a single animal, share a common origin while developing their own spatial expression. This idea is expressed through a continuous field of curved oak slats that carries through the interior from the entrance, around the bar and the perimeter of the open kitchen. Expanding and contracting as the screen moves through the space, and extending vertically at key moments, the installation organizes the interior while reinforcing the project’s central idea: a collection of distinct spaces that remain visually and spatially connected as part of a larger whole.

Within this field, a bar anchored by a custom fireplace formed from raw blackened steel acts as the social centre of the room. From this gathering point, the working life of the kitchen unfolds in full view. An open kitchen anchors one edge of the dining room, where a take-out pizza window engages the adjacent hotel lobby and a large meat cutter prepares cuts in plain sight.

Adjacent to the open kitchen, a glazed meat locker lined with hanging salumi and a connected meat production space reveal the craft behind the kitchen’s whole-animal approach. At this moment, the oak slats shift dramatically to a glossy fire-engine red, an electric visual marker within the room that draws attention to the meat-making process while paying homage to the red stripe found on the napkins at Charcut’s original location. Beyond this point lies the Butchrina, a private dining room offering guests direct views into the making of the restaurant’s in-house meats.

The 105-seat restaurant occupies the ground floor of the new Alt Hotel University District, a 15-storey mixed-use building by Germain Hotels.