San Francisco

From praying in St. Peter's Basilica, to growing luxuriant sideburns at Graceland, the perfect setting can elevate your enjoyment of life's finer things. Eat meat at its shrine: the Udder Room.

New at Avedano's vaunted Holly Park flesh market, Udder's a rustic, dark-wood dining hall where an all inclusive rate (space/food/drink) gets your crew a custom-tailored feast, plus the flinty satisfaction of knowing your food was recently mooing for mercy in the next room. The evening starts with drinks/apps in what was once a refrigerated "cutting room", after which you're escorted into Udder proper: a long communal table, bench seating along the walls, and a salvaged 60s fireplace, all lorded over by a steer skull and a mural of oddly unconcerned cattle (serenity cow). Select your prep and serving steez (buffet, family style, or separate courses), and you'll be presented with a spread carved from Avedano's stockpile of grassfed Strawberry Mtn beef, Duroc pork, Sonoma lamb, and Mary's "air-dried" chicken -- whose taste packs the charismatic self-assurance of a dripping Rod Tidwell.

Taking things beyond mere enjoyment, the Udder'll be used as a classroom where the general public can try its own hand at casing sausage, a setting so perfect, it makes learning about eating almost as fun as eating about eating.