Chicago’s Best Butchers and Stores to Buy Meat | Eater Chicago

"Owned and run by brother-sister duo Derek and Yolanda Luszcz, this Lincoln Square gourmet European butcher shop specializes in sausage (they have 40 different types of smoked sausages and 30 varieties of sliced deli meats), but you can also get a leg of lamb, whole Amish chickens, and pork roasts. Gene’s says they use authentic, Old World sausage-making methods. Most places use pellet-driven computerized smokers, but Gene’s uses a traditional European smokehouse with cherry wood they get from Michigan and mesquite chips, along with natural cases. Lincoln Square is a historically German neighborhood, but Gene’s pulls from all over the European continent, with goods and foods from Lithuania, Spain, Poland, Switzerland, and more. Another bonus? Their rooftop beer and wine garden, where you can hang out with your friends and stuff yourself with homemade sausages and charcuterie. They also have one of the widest varieties of uncommon meats in the city, with duck, rabbit, bison, venison, pheasant, oxtail, alligator, and crawfish sausage (both are blended with pork), and capon, a castrated male chicken that is fattened up for eating." - Nylah Iqbal Muhammad