Catch Belcampo’s Santa Monica pop-up starting tonight

Lusting after that Belcampo cheeseburger, but can’t bring yourself to drive all the way downtown to the Grand Central Market to try it? Good news – the butcher shop-lunch counter is opening in Santa Monica, if only for a brief time. First service is this evening and it will run only through May 25.

The company is billing Belcampo Farm Kitchen, a restaurant-only operation, as a month-long pop-up and sneak preview of what will become a full-service butcher shop and restaurant later this summer. It’s at 1026 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica, which has been at various times the Temple Bar and the Dakota Lounge.

Belcampo is the first vertically integrated meat company in the U.S. What that means is that all of the meat it sells and serves comes from animals it has raised on its own ranch (12,000 acres near Mount Shasta) and slaughtered and processed in its own facilities.

Everything is done to the utmost in sustainability -- it uses the latest in pasture rotation philosophy, the beef is all grass-finished, and humane meat expert Temple Grandin helped design the slaughter facilities.

The restaurant will be open only for dinner hours during this trial run, from 5 to 10 p.m. Other than that cheeseburger, the menu is more developed than the sandwiches served at Grand Central Market. Belcampo Farm Kitchen will serve dishes such as grilled asparagus with pork fat and herbs, beef carpaccio with pesto and baby arugula and, you probably could have predicted, a steak frites.

1026 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 451-5750.