





Meet Efrain Cuevas. He’s a 31 year-old chef from Chicago and he’s single. Yum! Chefrain, as he is fond of calling himself, is so hip he doesn’t even need a restaurant. Oh no, mon freres. Chefrain is an underground chef who runs the super inside 24 Below club. If Jamie Oliver is Wilco, Chefrain is, like, Midlake. “WTF???” you ask? Exactly:
24Below is Chicago’s newest underground supper club. […] Members will have access to Roving Dinner Party Raves that materialize in underground venues all over the city such as lofts, galleries, and homes. Upcoming events include dinners in the park, dinners at the farm, food and fashion dinners, and dinners featuring local talented chefs. Seating is limited to 24 guests per event.
Oh my god. Show your egg at the Circle K and the clerk will give you the address! That is, unless your host is getting hassled by the man. The man, in this case, being those squares at the board of health. Chicagoist fills us in:
A dinner Cuevas planned two weeks ago brought about some backlash. Cuevas planned a birria dinner involving a goat he would personally slaughter and butcher.
Shocking. But where would he get an idea like that? It’s almost as if he’s…he’s…
Cuevas says he’s done the deed before—when he was growing up in Aurora his father used to kill and prepare goats for Mexican weddings.
Mexican! We’re so enchanted. But not in George Bush’s America. The Food Chain says it all went down like this:
He bought a goat named Tony from a farmer near Joliet, and was planning to transport the beast to the city and dispatch it the day before Sunday’s dinner. He posted notices of the event on [Chicago-based culinary chat sites] and his own [site], inviting people to witness the slaughter […] Cuevas got an e-mail from an officer with the Chicago Police Department’s Animal Crimes Unit, saying that the Humane Society (and apparently many others) had complained. Cuevas was warned that if he went ahead with the dinner he and his guests would be subject to arrest for animal cruelty, and the restaurant he planned to hold it in risked being shut down […] that was enough for Cuevas, who scotched the slaughter and used federally approved meat instead.
Animal cruelty, ay? Better warn everyone who’s ever eaten an animal ever. In the meantime, the above video features Chefrain and a friend retrieving Tony the goat from the slaughterhouse. We only include it because we think Chefrain’s dreamy when he’s engaging in silencing of the goats. This week: He makes Turduckenit (Turkey stuffed with duck, stuffed with at least two other animals) for hungry Chicago hipsters! We might be in love.
A Curse of a Different Billy Goat [Chicagoist]
Spiked: underground goat slaughter [The Food Chain]

OMG, this guy is hot. I also want him.
Posted by Guana Bust A Nut | November 21, 2007
Being from Jalisco, I had to try it. The birria was so-so, maybe if it had been ritually slaughtered, it would have been better… and the Cubs would have won a world series.
Posted by birria on the brain | November 21, 2007
@birria on the brain: You’ve piqued my interest. Now I want to participate in the slaughtering of a goat, and maybe make some birria, if time permits. Maybe I should go to Jalisco. Is it easy to buy a goat in Puerto Vallarta?
Posted by Guana Bust A Nut | November 21, 2007
ask the concierge at your all inclusive resort.
Posted by birria on the brain | November 21, 2007
mes freres maybe? I’ll gladly swallow whatever Chefrain whips up for me.
Too many swallowing jokes for me this week…
Posted by Marco | November 21, 2007
P.S. Thanks to the cameraman for that crotch shot at the end.
Posted by ella | November 21, 2007
you missed some good birria
http://chefrain.com/20below/?p=16
Posted by chEfrain | November 26, 2007
If you want good birria in Jalisco, you have to go to and large town in Los Altos de Jalisco, namely Tepatitlan, San Juan de los Lagos, Jalos, or Yahualica. Some good goat right there.
I’d make a plug for my cousin’s taqueria, but I forgot what corner he has his taqueria in.
Posted by Diego | November 27, 2007