I recently had a fantastic meal at Celentano’s restaurant in Glasgow, where chef Dean Parker and wife Anna presented a starter of agnolotti with Mossgiel farm ricotta with Chanretelle ketchup and sourdough breadcrumb; a butter-soft, four-week dry-aged grass-fed medium-rare Pure Luing sirloin steak (above), served off-the-bone but with the bone on the side, and dressed with a delicious green peppercorn and oyster sauce. A cube of crispy beef-fat potato strati and a salad of charred kale and chicory with a beetroot horseradish dressing, followed by a house malted barley parfait (pictures below), was lip-smackingly delicious, and altogether made the beef sing.
It also offered an insight into the revitalisation of one of our most traditional trades.
For I was not eating alone. I’d joined a group of 50 butchers and chefs from London, Scotland and around the rest of the UK. I spotted butcher Irish Haze and chef Fred Smith of Flat Iron’s Covent Garden branch; Rich Bowman, head chef at the Quality Chop House in Farringdon, London; a team from the Meatopia meat festival at Tobacco Dock, Shadwell, London; the team from From the Ashes BBQ in Hackney; the team from Northfields Farm in Borough Market, London; Jonny Farrell of Butcher Farrell’s Meat Emporium, Lancashire; Nick Ellis and his father Nicholas of Ellis butcher in Blackheath, London; and chefs from Ka Pao in Glasgow (where the group ate the previous evening) and sister restaurant Ox and Finch; Michelin-starred The Kitchin, Edinburgh; Michelin-starred Timberyard in Edinburgh; and Colin Nicholson of Mingary Castle, Ardnamurchan.
All are customers of MacDuff 1890, the fourth-generation Wishaw-based speciality rare and native breed beef, lamb, mutton and pork suppliers, now run by the super-dynamic Andrew Duff, great grandson of the company’s founder. He’d organised the gastronomic gathering to take place after the company’s Carcass Show and live auction at the Wishaw HQ, including visits to the dedicated farms across the country that raise the unique meat for them. Our sirloin on the night was from High Mathernock Farm in Kilmalcolm.
Andrew sources over 20 listed breeds to keep them in existence and livestock are all raised on farms in Scotland. They include Native Aberdeen Angus, White Park cattle from the Duke Hamilton’s East Lothian estate, Fife Dexters, Pure Luing, Pure Shetland and - one of the most recent and on-trend - Pure Jersey from retired dairy cattle whose incredible marbling, texture and flavour has been compared to Spanish Galician and even Japanese Wagyu.
Apart from the astonishing flavours of the beef-centred meal at Celentano’s I was struck by the youth and dash of many of my fellow diners - I mean, butchers wearing earrings, beards, tatts and topknots: who knew? And that was just the men (I didn’t meet any female butchers on the night - although I understand from Scottish Craft Butchers that 20% of its 200 apprenticeships this year are female and that that number has been growing).
It was a revelation to learn how a generation of contemporary butchers is revolutionising this most traditional of trades - and is taking with it Scottish rare and native breeds under Andrew Duff’s stewardship. Or maybe it’s the other way round … either way, it appears the two are inextricably intertwined.
The funky new body image of butchers is possibly down to their being on public show in the emerging trend for open butcheries in restaurants. After all, it was first seen in chefs a few years ago as their own front-facing role increased. High street butchers, working in full view of customers, are also seeing something of a revival, with younger members of long-established independent family businesses more willing to join in or even open their own shops. Evidently, butchery is being dragged out of obscurity and into the limelight, bringing with it a heightened appreciation of the exceptional knife skills involved. A welcome development for a forgotten traditional trade, surely.
I’m told by Gordon King of the Perth-based Scottish Craft Butchers that as restaurants closed during the Covid-19 lockdown many out-of-work chefs, including sushi chefs, crossed over to butchery, bringing their exceptional knife skills with them. And that during social distancing, the habit by working-from-home consumers was formed of going to the butcher’s rather than the crowded supermarket. And that it has stuck.
Hand-in-hand with this is an increased interest in provenance, welfare and unusual meats rather than the mince and stew of yesteryear. “Post-Covid there’s been a massive interest in and appreciation of provenance and native breeds that you can’t get the the local supermarket,” says Andrew Duff. “People are looking for the higher-end offering you can only get at the butcher’s or more progressive restaurants.”
Dean Parker, head chef at Celantano’s, said: “Andrew’s passion for rare breed beef really filters down from him sourcing the farms that grow them to finding butchers and restaurants with the same like-minded views on sustainability. If more suppliers worked like this the industry would be a much brighter place.”
Fred Smith, head chef at Flat Iron’s Covent Garden restaurant, which has its own in-house butchery run by Irish Haze, whose earring features a meat cleaver, has been buying whole carcasses from MacDuff since Andrew Duff took over. “Andrew’s breeds are interesting, unique and raised with excellent husbandry and next-level traceability. We’re a very value-oriented brand, and our Scottish flat iron [featherblade] and bavette is fantastic quality popular with our demographic of 25-40 year olds - women included.”
