Igor Clark

I know I’m always going on about meat, but, well, that’s because it’s so great. When it’s good, that is — and when you buy it from the Ginger Pig’s new Hackney branch, that’s exactly what it is.

The shop itself is nicely understated; no airs and graces, just a clean, fresh, white room with lots of light, a blond wood floor and, by way of an entirely natural, unassuming, and gently confident assertion of pedigree, a glass door through to the meat store. The huge variety of wares on display is beautifully presented and incredibly tempting; when the lady serving me and I had sorted out our bacon business and she asked if there was anything else I wanted, I had to restrain myself from embarking on a pork–belly and fore–rib spree.

Instead I contented myself with this prime fillet steak, by comparison with other purveyors of meat hardly a snip at around £8, but boy, was it worth it. I wouldn’t have expected myself to describe a fillet as “buttery”, but that’s what it was, in texture and even in taste; the blandness to whose acceptance we’ve become inured in seeking tenderness elsewhere was replaced by a soft, round and, yes, buttery flavour in the front of the mouth, reinforced on further rumination by a big, broad beef bouquet of the type one normally associates with a large joint.

Fantastic stuff, but I couldn’t help but be a little saddened by the thought that this is really what we should get everywhere. Without wanting to take anything whatsoever away from the Ginger Pig’s wonderful produce or principles, it’s a sad indictment of the current state of affairs that this should stand so far ahead of the rest of the processed, packaged, sanitized dross that we as a society have learned to expect, simply by virtue of practicing the sort of artisan husbandry that can only derive from a passion for providing the very best.