Right around the corner from Chef Link's renowned restaurant Cochon is its sister restaurant: Cochon Butcher. This deli and cocktail bar does not have the same name recognition, but the fare is certainly just as worthy of your appetite.

Butcher greets diners with a casual environment by inviting guests to saunter up to the counter to order food and drink off chalk board menus. The decor has a cool, metallic edge that seems a natural fit to a traditional deli, warmed with breezes off the bayou: home-made hot sauces and pickled okra, an alligator head and mirrored skull high up on a shelf. Nearly everything on the menu is made and prepared in house. Chef Link even recently started raising his own pigs. After much debate, we decided to try the Pork Belly Sandwich, Brisket Sweet & Spicy Sliders, and The Pink Mustache cocktail. In the end it was all we could do to roll these happy little piggies all the way home.