Meat-shopping in the City

Meat City, Farringdon Road

Meat City (article here) is a one-man butchery run by Nigel Armstrong, who is a nice chap with a real passion for quality meat. Unlike a lot of "butchers" which are actually just meat shops (including most of those just round the corner at Smithfields Market), Nigel hangs and butchers his own meat, the beef for a full 28 days. Treat yourself to some steaks from here - I defy you to find a better bit of beef anywhere. Butchery is done on a weekly cycle which means, for example, that you will not always find a bit of rolled roasting sirloin except at the end of the week. There is a freezer at the back which will always have a bit of topside and often some interesting game and meats from elsewhere, including kudu, springbok, kangaroo, ostrich as well as rabbit and venison.

It is expensive, but in this case you really are getting quality in proportion to the price. Compared to a bit of fillet, sirloin or rump from Meat City, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference-Jamie Oliver-Happy Cow-Hung for 21 Days or Tesco Finest steak (let alone their cheaper steaks and cuts) might as well be burger bun for all the taste it has.

The meat is mostly from happy animals - a leaflet on the counter explains where most of it comes from, why it isn't all organic (sheep, in particular, apparently have a much better quality of life if they are given small doses of medication to fend off irritants and parasites). The shop is open until 6.30pm Monday to Friday.

If you like to make your own stock, ask Nigel for beef and pork bones. I don't know if bones vary in quality as much as meat, but I have always been pleased with the stock I have got from them and at a pound per kilo you might as well ask when you're there.

Good dry-cured bacons and black and white puddings make a fine contribution to any fry-up. And finally, the pork sausages are top notch - in my opinion better than the "award-winning" ones from the also excellent:

Simply Sausages

Simply Sausages sells pretty much just sausages (there is a rack of packets of biltong and some shelves with sauces and relishes). They have about two dozen kinds, including an award-winning pork banger, a peppery breakfast sausage, an organic pork banger as well as lamb, venison, and various spiced sausages including a good merguez. The pork sausages are really excellent meaty things. I am not a huge fan of beef or game sausages, but they seem pretty good. As with all proper sausages, the fat and breadcrumb are there for taste and texture rather than filler. One welcome side-effect of this is that they seem a lot healthier than comparable bangers.

The prices are pretty reasonable - certain no more that you would pay for good quality sausages in a supermarket. Wander in late-afternoon and you will often find a mixed tray of about dozen saugases "to be cooked or frozen today" for a couple of quid.

Northfields Farm, Borough Market

I can't decide whether I rate the staff at this stall at the famous Borough Market very highly as butchers - perhaps I am prejudiced, but they all seem a bit too young and they seem to have mostly prime cuts which makes me wonder where the rest of the cow/etc is going - but their meat is excellent. It is expensive but worth it, and open on Saturdays which Meat City is not. Again, it is substantially humanely-reared meat, allwed to mature without adulterants.

Don't let the name mislead you, this isn't a better-organised stall at a farmers' market - Northfields Farm is a butcher which happens to be attached to a farm. They have a farm shop in Rutland, stalls at Borough and Broadway markets and will be often found at food fairs and festivals around the country.

Aside from meat they have a burger/sausage-frying area, where you can sample some tasty, tasty food in a bun, and a slightly pointless shelf of chutneys and relishes.

J C Continental Stores, Caledonian Road (just by Kings Cross)

This lovely little Italian shop is nt a meat shop per se, but does do fine meaty things. It is run by a tiny, old (I guess not far short of 70) guy and his wife, and specialises in imported Italian staples. From the old-school, the shop is not self-service but rather you must direct one of these lovely people around the back of a horseshoe-shaped bar behing which are shelves of sauces, pasta, biscotti and wine, as well as cheeses, salami and other sausages, mortadella, bresaola, cooked hams and a big rack of delicious parma hams.

This last is the main attraction - the prosciutto is usually excellent (it does vary a little) and at 50p/oz, impossibly cheap for those used to spending a fiver on eight transparent slices at Waitrose. This is old-school shopping - ask for half a pound and you will have to wait 5 minutes while it is sliced for you on a beautiful ancient hand-cranked machine, laid out a slice at a time on waxed paper. The salamis are generally good too, in particular a splendid spicy salami which reminds one that fiery food is not the exclusive province of the East. One tip - don't over-order. Aside from taking ages to slice, the parma especially will dry out in the fridge.

They also do a really, really good pork banger, which is rich and pungent with herbs and spices but not so much so that it becomes something other than a good Britist-style sausage.

The cheese is good value too. If memory serves mostly around 50p/oz for good Parmigiano , Gorgonzola, Provolone, wonderful Tellegio and with mozzarella at 50p/ball (or a bit more for proper bufala).

Other products are what you might expect - sauces, pasta (dried and fresh packet), breads and wine. I got in trouble once for asking for "one of the big bottles of your red cooking wine", because even at 7 or 8 quid for two litres it is actually perfectly acceptable.

It is fabulous little shop, the sort which make a town a better place by being there even if you only go once a month. When it closed for a month last year after the old guy had a heart attack, I was miserable, imagining that it had shut down.