How do I buy meat from a butcher without feeling out of my depth?
What to say, what to ask for, what a butcher will do for free, and how to get better meat for less than a supermarket charges.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 10 min
- Read
- 3 min
Short answer
Say what you are cooking rather than naming a cut, and let them choose. Ask for the cut to be prepared how you need it — boned, rolled, tied, trimmed, scored, diced, minced — which is free and is the main reason to go. Buy the cheap cuts they recommend and the counter works out cheaper than a supermarket.
The awkwardness people feel at a butcher's counter comes from thinking they are expected to know the cuts. The opposite is true: the useful conversation starts from the dish, and the butcher fills in the cut. Nobody minds being asked.
Step by step
- Lead with the dish and the number of people.'I want to do a slow-cooked beef thing for six on Sunday' gets you a better answer than asking for two kilos of chuck. They know what came in that week and what is worth buying today.
- Ask what is good this week.A whole carcass arrives and gets sold down over days. Asking what they would take home is the single most useful question at the counter, and it usually points at something cheap.
- Ask for the preparation you need.Boning, rolling and tying a joint, French-trimming a rack, scoring skin for crackling, trimming silverskin, dicing, mincing to order, spatchcocking a chicken, jointing a bird. All of this is normally free and all of it saves you time and improves the result.
- Order ahead for anything unusual.Onglet, ox cheek, a whole shoulder, goose, a large rib on the bone at Christmas. A day or two of notice gets you things that are never on display. This is the main advantage over a supermarket.
- Buy by number of people, not by weight.Say how many you are feeding and whether you want leftovers. A butcher does that sum dozens of times a day and will cut to it.
- Ask about the mince.Butcher's mince is usually made that day from trim of known cuts, at a fat percentage they can tell you or adjust. Ask for it coarser for burgers and finer for a ragù, and ask them to mince chuck or brisket specifically if you want it.
- Ask for the bones and trimmings.Beef bones, chicken carcasses and pork skin are usually free or close to it, and they are stock and crackling. Very few people ask.
Tips
- If you are nervous, go on a weekday morning rather than Saturday lunchtime. There is time to talk and the counter is fully stocked.
- Buying a larger piece and asking for it to be cut into a joint plus dice plus mince is usually cheaper per kilo than buying each separately.
- A butcher who asks what you are cooking before answering is a good sign. So is a shop where the counter is not entirely steaks and chicken breasts.
Common mistakes
- Only buying the expensive cuts — It is the most expensive way to shop and it wastes what a butcher is actually for. The value and the advice both live in the cheap cuts.
- Not saying how you plan to cook it — The same named cut suits different methods depending on how it is trimmed and cut. Without the method the butcher is guessing.
Questions people ask
Is a butcher more expensive than a supermarket?
On steaks and chicken breasts, usually. On shoulder, shin, cheek, neck, hock, mince, bones and offal, generally not, and the quality gap is larger. What makes it expensive is buying the same things you would have bought in a supermarket.
How much notice do I need for a Christmas order?
For turkey, goose and large rib joints, weeks rather than days — most shops open a book in November. For everything else, a couple of days is plenty.