Jeremy Schaller is a proud third-generation butcher. But his latest offering has nothing to do with meat.
On Friday, the owner of Upper East Side mainstay Schaller & Weber added several new vegan offerings to the menu at his next-door sausage spot, Schaller’s Stube.
The plant-based Beyond Sausage links are by Beyond Meat — the same brand behind another plant-based meat substitute, the Beyond Burger — and are just the latest in a wave of products and menu items catering to carnivores, vegetarians and vegans alike looking to incorporate meat-free items in their diet.
By customer demand, Schaller’s Stube had added a vegan sausage to the menu after opening in 2015 on Second Avenue near 86th Street, but Schaller wasn’t happy with it.
When Beyond Meat approached him to be the first New York City restaurant to carry the sausage, he had a change of face.
“I would never eat a non-pork sausage until I ate [theirs],” Schaller said. “When I tried it, it had the right texture, the right flavor profile. It actually tastes like meat.”
There are three items on the menu that feature the Beyond Sausage: the Beyond Classic ($10), a bratwurst paired with Schaller & Weber’s sauerkraut and Düsseldorf mustard; the Bahn-Meat ($12), a hot Italian sausage topped with a daiko-carrot slaw, cucumber, fresh jalapeño, cilantro and sriracha aioli; and the Sweet Sicilian ($11), a sweet Italian sausage with a balsamic reduction, sautéed peppers, caramelized onions and fresh Italian parsley.
Instead of Schaller’s Stube’s typical Balthazar brioche for the sausage roll, the Beyond Sausage offerings use a vegan Pretzilla bun. All toppings are vegan, too, including the sriracha aioli in the Bahn-Meat.
Customers can also sub in the Beyond Sausage — made from rice, peas and fava bean proteins with an algae casing — with any other sausage on the menu.
When Schaller’s Stube expands with an outpost in the new Lower East Side food hall Essex Crossing later this year, it’ll carry Beyond Sausage on the menu there, too.
Both restaurant and retail offerings are also on the rise beyond Schaller’s Stube. Next month, a second to-be-announced restaurant in Manhattan will add the Beyond Sausage to its menu, and customers can expect to find it for sale in Whole Foods and other national chains soon.
Beyond New York, the product will be rolling out in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Austin, as well.
For those following the meat-free movement, the sausage isn’t the only Beyond Meat product available in the city — last month, Bareburger added the Beyond Burger to the menu of 12 Manhattan locations, with more to follow.
Another meat substitute, the “bleeding” Impossible Burger by Impossible Foods, is available at select locations, from such chains as Bareburger, Bill’s Bar & Burger, Umami Burger and Wahlburgers, to restaurants such as Saxon + Parole and Momofuku Nishi.
Schaller sees more meat-centric eateries following suit.
“It’s obviously going to be the future,” he said. “So many people are searching for alternatives to meat. Now it’s great to have something that I would choose to eat as a meat-eater, too.”
