A no-fear guide to navigating the butcher’s shop

In the 1970s, my father would go to HG Walter to buy sausages on Saturdays. Half a century later, I am back at the west London shop to carry out a different kind of assignment. I’m here with my notepad to write down every question the team gets asked in a single day. Half the point of a visit to a butcher’s shop, I have realised, is being able to ask questions. 

I’m positioned behind the counter alongside 17-year-old apprentice Alicia Heanen, whose granddad sold my dad his sausages. Also there is Tom Aston, the shop manager, with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things butchery and Moran Berger, who holds a Diplôme de Cuisine from Le Cordon Bleu. Daniel, Alicia’s dad, pops in a couple of times, greeting customers as old friends. 

HG Walter attracts a varied and eccentric community in Barons Court. Over the course of the day, I meet a man who likes to give birds he’s shot to one butcher, a Russian woman buying a birthday burger for her dog and a local painter who invites me to his studio after closing time so he can tell me how much the butcher’s means to him.

What follows is an edited account of the questions customers asked and how they were answered, supplemented by comments from HG Walter’s managing director Adam Heanen.

What can I use to make beef stock?

10.15AM a rakish man in a suede jacket

Marrow bones, replies Moran. A kilogramme of bones makes a litre of stock.

Bones used to be given away for free by butchers, but they now generally cost between £1 and £3 per kilo. There’s prep involved in trimming the meat and cutting the bones, and an eager market of restaurant chefs who will buy them in quantity for stock. Chopped calves’ feet are also popular with chefs for this purpose.

The customer says he also needs something to add beefiness to the stock. He wonders if brisket might be good. Moran steers him towards shin, explaining that with shin you have the meatiness but also the marrow, which is full of flavour. There’s also collagen in both the marrow and the connective tissues, which is what gives stock that glossiness and gelatinous quality.

What’s the shortest period steak can be hung for?

10.30AM an American who wants something ‘not too strong’

Tom explains that the animal first needs to go into rigor mortis and to then come out of it. It will normally leave the abattoir after seven days, at which point enzymes will have just started breaking down connective tissue. Steak is then aged in the butcher’s shop, surrounded by walls of Himalayan salt to extract moisture — which is one of 20-odd variables that need to be got right when ageing beef.

At HG Walter, beef is aged for an average of six weeks for prime cuts — rump, sirloin and rib. A young steak, Tom cautions, is full of haemoglobin, which gives it chewiness. “It takes a month to drain all the blood out of the flesh, which is when it becomes really tender.”

At the other end of the scale, I later learnt that Sophie’s Steakhouse in Soho was, at one point, serving steak that had been aged for 100 days. (They were, Sophie says, “very funky”.) If customers want steak that’s been aged for a long time, some butchers will oblige by keeping it in a cabinet at the back with your name on it.

Some steaks don’t benefit from very long hangs. Fillet, for example, is a small muscle with not much fat protecting it.

Onglet, which comes from the diaphragm and has no bone or fat protecting it, generally goes sour if it’s aged and will be sold soon after it arrives from the abattoir, vacuum-sealed to extend its life.

Adam says that the best way to visualise how much ageing a steak can take is to consider its size: a 12kg rib of beef, which HG Walter might hang for seven weeks, is surrounded by bone and fat and so is going to be more protected during the process than a 600g onglet which is a small, lean cut with no fat and no bone.

What is dry ageing versus wet ageing?

10.45AM a man who gives the impression of being in London on business

Tom tells him that everything in this shop is dry aged (as explained above), which will be the case in all top-of-the-range butcher’s shops. There is a penalty to this process: a 30-day dry-aged steak will have lost 15 per cent of its weight.

Wet-aged beef is vacuum packed, and the steak is aged without losing its juices. It is more cost effective for producers and cheaper to buy, but sitting in a vacuum bag doesn’t do much for the flavour, and it may even go a bit sour.

How do you cook Iberico pork?

10.46AM a Bulgarian man

Iberico pork, which has soared in popularity in the past 10 years, is a highly marbled and extremely tender meat from pigs native to the Iberian peninsula. Popular cuts include Pluma, Secreto, Presa and loin, all of which work very well for fast-cooking on the grill or barbecue. Moran tells him that, unlike most British pork, you can cook it pink in the middle. Because it’s not farmed intensively and the pigs eat acorns, there is no risk of worms.

Why are butcher’s shops so expensive?

10.48AM the author, after witnessing a particularly extravagant order that came to just shy of £200

Quality is key. Butchers pride themselves on the selection of farms and meat. Moran says it’s also because you can customise things. You can get a certain weight or have a cut prepared just the way you want it. Tom adds that ultimately the farmers set the price on lots of things. They form a co-operative and they’ll only sell to slaughterhouses at one price.

What price distinguishes a cheap cut of beef from an expensive one?

First, you need to understand the different weights you’ll require for a serving. A good guide would be to say that a generous serving is 250g per person if the product is boneless, and up to about 400g per person if the bone is in. In an upmarket butcher’s like HG Walter, you would be paying above £12 per person at the top end. At the cheaper end — chuck steak for example — you’d be paying about £4 per person. You can use these price points to inform your butcher. For example, you could say “I’m looking to feed four people for around £6 per head.”

Where’s the offal?

11.06AM an older lady who’s been coming to this butcher’s for decades

Offal is the name given to an animal’s internal organs, although it is often taken to encompass all by-products — ears, tail, et cetera. Tom tells her they will have calf’s liver tomorrow but it’s proving hard to get. Moran says that liver has become very popular since lockdown, when people started to cook more ambitiously.

Different types of offal fall in and out of fashion. For example, lamb’s liver is currently considered a bit old school and pig’s liver is only popular in the Asian market.

Veal offal is particularly prized in the UK. HG Walter sells far more calves’ livers than ox livers, as they are enjoyed for being lighter and milkier. Veal kidneys and sweetbreads are also very popular. Sweetbreads can fetch around £60 per kilo, which is close to beef fillet. 

Those £60 sweetbreads aside, offal can often be a cheap cut. At HG Walter, four lambs’ kidneys cost £2.60 and an ox heart, which usually weighs about 3kg, is £12.25. Heart, Tom says, is a hit among those who like steak. People tend to slow cook it or you can slice it thin and barbecue it.

How long will my chicken last?

Most chicken sold over the counter at a butcher’s would be given three to four days’ shelf life. A whole bird will have a slightly longer shelf life of five to six days, seven if vacuum sealed. Pork lasts a little bit longer than chicken, and beef lasts longer than pork. With a local butcher, Adam says, you often have people coming in to buy just what they need on the day.

When will you have game in again?

11.32AM a woman who’s just been to the gym

Moran tells her that the pheasant and partridge season, when these birds are shot, finished on February 1. Grouse will be available again from the “Glorious Twelfth” (August 12), dubbed the new year’s day of shooting since a law was passed in 1773 restricting the hunting season. Partridge season starts in September. Pigeon is available year round but particularly in autumn. Game birds are often shot on estates, and a top-end butcher will generally only work with certified game dealers that source quality birds from shoots in their area. 

Game represents great value, partly because it roams wild so there aren’t the same farming costs. Moran runs up the numbers: a pheasant at HG Walter is £5, a pigeon is £5.50 and a grouse is £12.

Instead, the customer buys a guinea fowl, which Moran confirms is not dissimilar in terms of its flavour but is farmed rather than hunted.

What cuts are good for stewing?

12.05PM a Liverpudlian lady who wants to make an Irish stew

Tom gives her scrag, which is from the lamb’s neck and comes on the bone. It’s cost effective and flavoursome. Other good lamb cuts for a stew are shoulder and shank.

The customer says maybe she should take a few different cuts of lamb but Tom shakes his head. “You always want the same cut for a stew because different cuts cook at different speeds.”

The best beef cuts for stewing include shin, blade, cheek and chuck. For pork, try shoulder, cheek, neck and fillet.

Where’s this beef from?

12.30PM a man in a canvas suit

Tom says that it is Hereford beef. He explains that all the beef comes from the abattoir with a label that tells you the breed, the weight, the date it was killed and the fat percentage. The main breeds at HG Walter are Angus and Hereford.

You’d have to be “a real connoisseur”, Tom says, to tell the difference between those two, but some breeds of native cattle have more fat than others and that makes them taste different.

Do all sausages in England have bread in them?

3.00PM a French woman

Moran tells her that yes, sausages in England do tend to have bread or rusk in them, but that the classic Italian ones they sell don’t, as is the case with lots of European-style sausages.

Can you cut that down for me?

3.10PM an Australian in a rush who wants to take a few hundred grammes off a shoulder of lamb

For the most part, a butcher can cut any bit of meat down however you’d like it. Alicia says that halving a shoulder would be fine. However it’s a bit of a waste to take a few hundred grammes off a shoulder so Tom encourages her to try half a leg of lamb instead. It’s smaller, less fatty and cooks faster.

Why is pork cheaper than beef?

3.12PM a woman on a break from working at home

Pork grows a lot more quickly, it reaches maturity three times faster than a cow, and it requires less ground, so is cheaper to farm. Pork is also an easy carcass to “balance” — meaning to use all parts of — because of the popularity of bacon and sausages.

If you buy something with the bone out, is it cheaper?

3.15pm the author, still thinking about that £200 transaction

Daniel, who has popped back from the office, explains that if you take the bone out of something the price goes up. You get the same amount of meat, you just pay for that extra service and you can’t deduct the price of the weight of the bone.

Will you have lamb for Easter?

3.15pm a dad with a toddler

Tom tells him they will but explains that it’s not going to be easy this year because Easter is so early (March 31, rather than mid-April). The lamb currently being sold, he explains, is hogget, which is a lamb between one and two years old. True “top-quality new-season lamb” will be ready around June or July and will have spent almost all its life eating grass. In March, what they call “new season”, is lamb that was born in late autumn. It has consequently spent a lot of its life in a lambing shed and is only put out on grass for the last month.

If you’ve asked for something to be cut, is it OK to then change your mind?

You are under no obligation to buy something that has been cut for you, even if you find it a bit embarrassing to hand it back. Even if a butcher has cut and prepped a bit of meat, they can still sell it to someone else. It will not go to waste.

Do you sell chicken feet?

3.18pm a determined Polish woman

Moran tells her that they don’t have any in but they can get them. They can get almost anything. Moran gives her his phone number so she can call to order chicken feet whenever she fancies. In the meantime she’s going to go to Shepherd’s Bush Market to see if there are any there.

Good butchers can get rarer cuts in for you, normally with a day or two turnaround. For example, Adam says, a butcher might not keep many ox hearts in stock as there’s low demand and they need to be fresh, but will be able to source one for you quickly. He sees this as something that separates butchers from supermarkets.

How do you make pork scratchings puff up?

3.21pm a young guy who pulls up outside in his car

Moran tells him they boil the pig skin until it’s very soft and the collagen breaks down. They then dry the pieces overnight in the oven at a very low heat, then fry them. The knack, he adds, with getting good crackling on a pork joint is similar. You need to make sure the skin is very dry. Supermarket pork tends to be wet and the energy in the oven ends up just drying the skin rather than getting it to crackle. The workaround is to draw the moisture out by covering it in salt and leaving it overnight.

How should I cook bavette?

3.30pm a woman who says she keeps seeing bavette in restaurants

Moran tells her to cook it rare. It is a cut with very little fat, and it is often thin. It just needs lots of heat on both sides. Moran says choosing the right steak comes down to how you like to cook it. If you like well done steak, you want something with lots of fat in it, like rib-eye or T-bone. If you cook fillet, for example, for a long time, it will become dry.

What’s the right size for a steak?

Moran says 200g-250g is about right for a steak; 300g would be on the big side.

What is a French chicken?

3.35pm the author

The common breeds of chicken over here, Tom explains, are either Ross or Cobb. They have big breasts, tend to taste the same and are often reared for only 35 days. The French have different breeds and rear them for a lot longer, sometimes for 70 days and more. Consequently they taste gamier. It is possible, but rarer, to find specialist chickens in the UK that are this old. Sutton Hoo chickens are one example.

Why is the fat on chicken yellow?

3.40pm the author, after a man in a sharp suit buys some chicken

The corn fed to chickens, Tom says, gives them that yellow tinge. Alicia chips in to say corn gives the chicken a creamy taste.

When it comes to the fat on beef, it becomes yellow because the animals are fed on fresh grass — it’s the carotene in the grass that causes it. Meat with yellow fat might be a bit older because it’s spent most of its life eating grass.

Why does some chicken smell?

4.00pm the author after seeing a schoolboy sniff the poultry

Tom explains that supermarket chicken tends to come in a plastic tray filled with gas. The gas is meant to be odourless but it isn’t. It also sits in its juices, which can start to smell. But as a result, supermarket chicken lasts longer than chicken from a butcher. Chicken in a butcher’s shop starts to blemish after a couple of days. Moran claims that with a marinade it can last longer.

Do you sell turkey when it’s not Christmas?

4.10pm a man who seems apprehensive

Moran, who later admits that it’s very unusual for someone to ask for turkey outside of the festive period, tells the customer they can get it but they’ll need notice.

Can I choose where my steak comes from?

4.30pm a regular who wants two fillet steaks from the middle of the loin

Moran trims some of the end off and then gets to work. He tells me they like to have big cuts on display and then cut them to demand, as it keeps the steak looking fresh and red. Over several days, when steaks are cut and in contact with the air, the myoglobin in the meat becomes brown. “It’s all about presentation,” Moran says.

Why aren’t you wearing gloves?

4.40pm an older woman who asks for a chop

Alicia tells her that they absolutely will if asked but it’s not a requirement. “You are cooking it too,” she reassures her. “Any bacteria will die.”

What’s ‘ex-dairy’?

4.40pm a non-committal man who has been browsing for some time

Tom explains they work with farms such as Westcombe Dairy, which, at the end of its dairy cows’ working lives, turns them out on to the grass in Somerset. “The flavour is amazing,” says Moran. Some ex-dairy holds a slightly higher price point as a speciality product. The ex-dairy beasts are sometimes up to 12 years old. Older animals taste different. Moran adds they recently had a Galician beast from a Spanish supplier that was 20 years old. “Quite tough,” he admits, “but very beefy”.

Most beef you’ll find in a butcher’s shop is “UTM”, which stands for under 30 months. If an animal is younger than 30 months, producers can leave the spinal column in because they aren’t considered at risk of BSE (mad cow disease). BSE can be present in the retina of the eye, the spinal cord and brain tissue. If they are older than 30 months, UK legislation requires the spinal column be removed.

What’s the best meat for meatballs in a sauce?

4.45pm a boy who’s shopping for his dad

Moran says it’s a tricky question. Beef has a lot of flavour but if you’ve got a sauce with a lot of flavour in already and you want the bolognese or meatballs to absorb it, pork and veal is good, or even just straight pork. “It’s like a sponge.”

What’s a poussin?

4.50pm the author, prompted by the purchase of two poussin

Moran explains, while he’s wrapping them up, that they are just young chickens. Poussin are a convenient bird to cook quickly and easily. The meat is close to the bone and is very flavoursome. It’s mild, sweet and tender.

What can I feed a very hungry teenager that won’t break the bank?

5.00PM a Spanish mother

Sausages or mince would be good, Moran suggests. (Chicken is expensive at the moment because of bird flu, inflated feed cost due to global conflict and a staff shortage due to Brexit.) Tom says when it comes to keeping your spend down generally, he always suggests something like rump or topside. If you get them right, you can get a very good roast out of them.

How do you cook big steaks?

5.02PM a man heading home from work who buys two big bits of T-bone

Moran tells the man you need to start it in the pan then finish the steak in the oven. It’s the same with big steaks in general, otherwise the outside burns.

HG Walter shuts up shop at 6pm. In the last half-hour, there is no time for questions — it’s a mad rush of people buying things for dinner. From Monday to Wednesday, Tom tells me, the pies are a big hit and then they start to go in for steak more as the week progresses.

But when the shutters are pulled down at Barons Court, business continues across at HG Walter’s wholesale site. It’s open 24 hours a day, just in case a chef wants to put in an order for bone marrow at 4am. We are the butcher, Daniel tells me, that always likes to say yes.

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