Buthion Fine Food & Wine Shop
One Thousand and Two Hundred Bottles of Wine on the Wall
Food shopping can be one of the most ho-hum, rote, mundane experiences in life. You go to the grocery store and you’re clustered together with a bunch of strangers in tight aisles, picking the same products you pick every single time. The blazing fluorescent lights, lack of visible clocks, and ambient yacht rock songs playing in the background, just loudly enough where you have to strain to hear but also too loudly to block it out, only add to the discomfort. However, Oklahoma City is fortunate enough to have several specialty stores peppered around town that provide a unique experience where you can wander and find specialty products that would be impossible to locate elsewhere.
Since its opening in January 2019, one such store, Buthion Fine Food & Wine Shop, gives you a refreshing atmosphere and massive selection in a relatively small space with a more European bent. The name comes from the co-owners, Michel and Alain Buthion. If the names of these two brothers don’t sound familiar, perhaps their iconic institution La Baguette rings a bell. Their parents taught them how to cook and instilled a strong passion for the culinary arts while living in France. The family immigrated in the 1980s and eventually the brothers started on their own ventures.
Wine is the star of the show at Buthion, displayed on beautiful racks of glistening lacquered hardwood shelves. Their unique inventory carries up to a mindboggling 1,200 labels, heavily focused on old world wines. Michel is quite the connoisseur, and, if you’ve ever attended a wine tasting with him at the helm, you know that his tasting notes are worth listening to. He works with local reps to select the best bottles he can find at prices ranging from $19 to $800 a bottle.
As for the market section, Buthion offers a variety of fresh produce, much of which is sourced from local farms like Prairie Earth Gardens of OKC and Whitmore Farms in Coyle. You can grab the staples for a meal at home and also find exotic ingredients. Looking for caviar, kangaroo, elk, sweetbread, or blood sausage? Who isn’t? This is the place to find it. If you’re coming up on a night when you don’t want to mess with dinner, Buthion has you covered. They offer simple to cook, prepared meals with a revolving selection of offerings. If you’re having a lowkey evening and feel the need to zone out with comfort food like pot pies or lasagna, you can swing in and out and get right to your binge watching.
There’s a lot to explore at Buthion, but, whatever you do, make sure to explore the pastry case before you leave. You won’t be sorry.
>Buthion Fine Food and Wine Shop, 7402 N May Ave, Oklahoma City; (405) 840-3047; labaguettebistro.com/fine-food-wine-shop
