The Flavors of Good Character
Catching up with Erik Sather of Lowry Hill Provisions
Chef Driven. What does that mean to you? Like “artisanal,” it’s a term or descriptor thrown around a lot these days. And in a time of data-driven marketing and 15-second Instagram sound bites, it’s sometimes hard to quickly (and confidently) discern the real from the hype. But when we tell you that Erik Sather and his team at Lowry Hill Provisions are the real deal, we mean it. We checked in on his operation one early morning to catch up and learn more about how this acclaimed Minneapolis chef has arrived at this moment.
“I really took to the mechanics of food” Erik told us early on in our visit. He grew up in Southern Minnesota on a hog farm and wanted to pursue cooking professionally after high school, so he enrolled in culinary school. It wouldn’t take long for him to realize that the act of making, rather than just procuring, would define his personal approach to food and would profoundly impact his professional career.
For a long time, while he was in kitchens, he told us, “I cut meat in the morning, cooked at night, or I would do more meat processing like sausage making and butchery.” His local food resume reads like an all-star list of both former and current heavyweights like Bar La Grassa, La Belle Vie, Seward Co-op, Clancey’s, and Solera. Notably, he founded Lowry Hill Meats, a counter-service butcher and sandwich shop in its namesake neighborhood of Minneapolis. During the 8 years there, he came to realize he was more interested in selling ingredients for people’s meals rather than cooking the meals for them. “Being a part of people’s holidays, special cookouts, whatever their day entailed, that was real nice.”
In 2022, the opportunity to take over the space that Red Table Meats had occupied in the Food Building, and he jumped at the chance to carry the torch of local salami making. He joined forces with Food Building owner Kieran Folliard to launch Lowry Hill Provisions. Erik’s 20+ years of deep food experience has not only informed the variety of flavors and styles his team makes each day, but those decades in kitchens and butcher shops continue to inform how and why his team does what they do. With quality paramount to the business’s success, Erik shares, “All the pork is sourced regionally, either from Northern or Southern Minnesota. We hand cut, hand tie, ferment, age, everything is done right here in Northeast. We’re only seven people here on the team. Compared to even the next step up, we're so tiny.”
While scaling up to a large salami production might be more efficient in the long run, in that race to the bottom line, it’s what is lost that might be more valuable: connection to animals, commitment to business integrity, top-quality products. At Lowry Hill Provisions, turns out integrity is the main ingredient.