Liquid Inspiration—the origins of Meat Hook Gallery’s name.

We opened Meat Hook Gallery to give a physical space to exhibit the prolific creative products of our six studios and their many collaborators. The space launched on September 4th with an exhibit of the work of Elsbeth Shaw and Calvin Duek curated by our art consultancy Mosquito Agency.

Since that time hundreds of people have been asking how we settled on the name Meat Hook for the space. While we think it is a great name for a space purpose-built to hang all the creative components of our studios from tip to tail (the offal along with the prize cuts), how we landed on it actually started with a conversation over cocktails.

When Founder Walker Mckinley and Procuratorial Director Michael Rogers sat down with a mutual client for a drink in their stunningly outfitted pied-a-terre (recently completed by Procuratorial), they were offered a Meat Hook cocktail. The client, an accomplished amateur mixologist, had recently sampled this variation on the traditional Red Hook while at Vancouver’s L’Abattoir restaurant. The cocktail, concocted by Shaun Layton (now of Como Taperia) was such a hit that it led to long musings about the purpose of galleries, the nature of collaboration, and the undeniable quality of a great cocktail to ease discussions. You should go to L’Abattoir to try one but if you can’t make it here is Shaun’s recipe as published in Scout Magazine.