A family butcher on Pontcanna Street since 1962: beef dry-aged thirty-five days in the window, lamb from two farms above Cowbridge, sausages made in the back every morning, and the price per kilo on every ticket and on this website.
Closed for today; opens tomorrow at 8:00am
The shop
Twenty-five cuts on the counter on a normal day, all priced per kilo on the ticket and on this website: beef from three farms in the Vale and Monmouthshire, lamb from above Cowbridge, pork from Carmarthenshire, free-range chicken and duck from near Usk. Cut to order, weighed in front of you, wrapped in paper.
Beef mince £11.
Whole sirloins and fore ribs from the three beef farms hang on the bone in the dry-ageing cabinet in the shop window for thirty-five days before they are cut. The crust comes off, the flavour stays. Steaks cut to the thickness you ask for; rib of beef by the bone; a côte de boeuf for two.
Sirloin £32 a kilo, ribeye £34, rump £24, fillet £52, rib of beef on the bone £28.
Eight sausages made here every morning in natural casings: the Pontcanna pork, Glamorgan with leek and Caerphilly, Cumberland, pork and apple, a Welsh lamb merguez, a beef and ale, a chipolata and a gluten-free. Burgers pressed by hand from dry-aged trim and chuck. Faggots on Thursdays, pies on Fridays.
Sausages £9.
The Christmas book opens on the first of October and closes on the fifteenth of December, and this website says which from the clock. Free-range bronze turkeys from a farm near Usk at £13.50 a kilo, turkey crowns, geese, three-bird roasts, ribs of beef from the cabinet, gammons we cure, pigs in blankets, stuffing and the stock bones. A £20 deposit; collection on the twenty-third or twenty-fourth.
Bronze turkey £13.
Three boxes from May to September: the Four at £38, the Eight at £68, the Feast for sixteen at £125. Hand-pressed burgers, the Pontcanna and merguez sausages, chicken thighs in our own marinade, lamb kofta, a rack of ribs in the larger boxes, and a card with the cooking order. Ordered by Friday noon for a Saturday; delivered within four miles.
The Four £38, the Eight £68, the Feast (sixteen) £125.
About twenty kitchens in Cardiff and the Vale get the van before nine: dry-aged sirloin and rib, Welsh lamb, pork, our sausages and burgers, chickens, bones and stock. Same farms as the counter, cut to spec, a price list we send on request, a £150 minimum, orders by text or email by six the evening before, thirty-day accounts after three months.
Trade prices about fifteen per cent under the counter list, sent as a sheet on request.
This week
Dry-aged 35 days. Two bones feeds six; a côte de boeuf for two about 900g.
For the slow oven. On the bone, or boned and rolled.
Scored for crackling. Slices for the grill on request.
Eight kinds, made every morning. About six to the pound.
Dry-aged 35 days. Cut to the thickness you say; 3cm is about 400g.
Free-range from near Usk. Jointed or spatchcocked if you ask.
Flat or point. Rolled, or whole for the smoker.
Cured here, back or streaky, sliced to the thickness you say.
Press "Price it" and the order page works out the joint at a sensible weight; change the weight there. Everything is weighed in front of you, so the figure is a few pence either way.
The Christmas book is open until 15 December: 56 days left to order a bird. Free-range bronze turkeys at £13.50 a kilo, geese, ribs of beef, gammons and the trimmings; a £20 deposit off the bill; collection on the 23rd or 24th.
Order for Christmas
Christmas
The turkeys are slow-grown free-range bronzes, hung for a week and delivered on the twenty-second. A five-kilo bird feeds eight and costs £67.50. The book opens on the first of October and closes at the end of the fifteenth of December, when the farm counts its birds; this page reads the clock and says which. Gammons cured here, pigs in blankets from our chipolatas, stuffing, stock bones, and the queue on the pavement with mince pies.
Dry-aged beef
Whole sirloins and fore ribs from three farms in the Vale and Monmouthshire hang on the bone in the cabinet at two degrees for thirty-five days. You can see them from the pavement. A sirloin at three centimetres is about four hundred grams; a côte de boeuf for two is about nine hundred; a two-bone rib feeds six on a Sunday. The trim goes into the burgers, which is why the burgers are good.
How we work
Thick or thin, on the bone or off, boned and rolled, butterflied, French-trimmed, diced for the pot. A proper butcher does it while you wait and does not charge extra for the knife work. Tell us what you are cooking and we will say which cut.
Every cut carries its price per kilo on the counter and on this website, and the joint is weighed in front of you. A Saturday order is priced from the same list as a Tuesday one. No loyalty cards, no apps, no small print.
Six farms, all in Wales, all visited by one of us in the last year. Beef from the Vale and Monmouthshire, lamb from above Cowbridge, pork from a herd in Carmarthenshire, chickens from a free-range unit near Usk. The farm is on the ticket.
Bones go for stock at a pound a bag, fat is rendered for dripping, trim becomes the burgers and the faggots, and anything left on a Sunday goes to the hostel on Cowbridge Road. A butcher who wastes meat is not a butcher.
May to September
£38 collected or delivered
Four burgers, eight sausages, four marinated thighs, four kofta, chimichurri. May to September.
£68 collected or delivered
Everything in the Four, doubled, plus a rack of ribs part-cooked for the grill.
£125 collected or delivered
The Eight, doubled, plus a butterflied leg of Welsh lamb and a kilo of merguez.
Order by Friday noon for a Saturday. Swap anything for anything of the same weight; halal lamb and chicken with a day's notice. The card in the box says what goes on the grill first.
Customers
I describe what I am cooking and Beca tells me the cut, the weight and how long. The rib of beef at Easter was the best thing I have ever put on a table and it cost less than the supermarket's because they weighed exactly what I asked for.
Thirty-five-day sirloin cut three centimetres thick while I watched. You can see the beef hanging in the window on the way past, which is either reassuring or alarming depending on your view. For me it is reassuring.
Eleven Christmases. Ordered in October on the website, chose the slot, picked up on the twenty-fourth with a mince pie in hand. The bronze turkey is a different animal from the supermarket one and the pigs in blankets are not negotiable in our house.
Six farms, all in Wales, all visited by one of us in the last year: beef from three farms in the Vale of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, lamb from two farms above Cowbridge, pork from one herd in Carmarthenshire, and free-range chickens and ducks from a unit near Usk. The farm is written on the ticket on every tray.
Yes, and on a Saturday it is the best way. Ring, email or use the order page by Friday noon; the order page works out the price of a joint by weight so you know before you ring. The joint is cut, wrapped and waiting under your name.
Every cut has its price per kilo on the counter list on this website, and the order page prices a cut at a weight: pick the cut, type the kilos, and it tells you. A two-kilo topside is £33; a five-kilo turkey is £67.50.
It opens on the first of October and closes at the end of the fifteenth of December, when the farm counts its birds. The Christmas page and the order page read the date and say whether it is open; the order form will not take a Christmas order after it closes.
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons within about four miles of the shop for £4, free over £60. Restaurants and kitchens get the van before nine, six mornings a week, with a £150 minimum.
The gluten-free pork sausage is made every morning on a separate bench with rice flour. Halal lamb and chicken from a certified abattoir with a day's notice; we are honest that the counter itself is not halal.
Pick the cut, say the weight, and the order page tells you the price before you ring. In by Friday noon and the joint is cut, wrapped and under your name on Saturday morning. Delivery within four miles on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
