Exclusive: A new collaboration between The Gannet restaurant and MacDuff Butcher- launching in Edinburgh on Wednesday August 11 - aims to build a closer direct relationship between consumers and where meat comes from, how it’s been reared - and how best to cook it. Taking place every Wednesday at the new St James’ Quarter, the bespoke service is the first of its kind in Scotland. Read on …
“We’re fans of fat”: Andrew Duff on the benefits of grass-fed beef
The idea of The Butcher’s Cut is that you visit the MacDuff Butcher counter - situated at Bonnie & Wild food marketplace on the fourth floor of Edinburgh’s new St James’ Quarter - discuss the choices on offer, and choose your cut of beef. The Gannet East restaurant – just five metres away - will then collect your meat and have it cooked to order for you by head chef John Munro and co-patron Ivan Stein (pictured below).
Initially the steaks on offer are a dry-aged flat iron, a MacDuff four-week dried rib-eye, and a “guest cut” of 11-year old Galician bone-in rib-eye.
John Munro, head chef at The Gannet East, and Ivan Stein, The Gannet’s co-patron, below
“To have a butcher’s counter right beside a restaurant is unusual and we believe this is the first bespoke service of its kind in Scotland,” said Andrew Duff, the 33-year-old great-grandson of MacDuff founder Peter Duff and the brains behind the bold new venture. “It is a truly unique experience for all of us. We’ve worked with The Gannet in Glasgow for several years and when we got the opportunity to do this with them at Bonnie & Wild it seemed a match made in heaven.”
The MacDuff Butcher counter is the first retail outlet for the 126-year-old Wishaw-based firm which, in addition to supplying independent butchers in London, also supplies some top-end restaurants such as The Little Chartroom, Café St Honore and L’escargot Bleu in Edinburgh, Unalome by Graeme Cheevers and Restaurant Eighty-Eight as well as The Gannet in Glasgow, and The Quality Chop House and Flat Iron in London. MacDuff sources only grass-fed cattle from a carefully curated network of dedicated small-scale farmers in Scotland. Its cutting room in Wishaw is Pasture for Life approved, as is the Wishaw abattoir next door.
Trying something like this in a shopping mall environment, albeit in the high-end food marketplace af the St James Quarter, is pretty brave given the - apparently - growing anti-meat movement. Will people go for it?
The MacDuff Butcher’s counter at Bonnie & Wild
“There’s a growing demand in the UK for a well-sourced, quality top-end product that people are willing to pay for,” Andrew Duff tells me. “One of the good things to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it has spawned a greater appreciation, especially among the younger demographic, of the benefits of buying local, low-impact and high welfare produce.
“On top of that, Brexit has completely closed off our export market to the EU. That all led us to consider how we could develop the business for the growing home market.
“More people are beginning to realise that there are fantastic health benefits in Scotch grass fed meat such as higher levels of Omega 3 and Vitamin B12. And we’re fans of fat, which creates beautiful marbling and great flavour and also lowers LDL cholesterol levels.
“We hope that our butchers - who are all aged under 35 - will connect with consumers of all ages to impart that directly to them. And it’s not just about health, it’s also about how pasture-led farming is beneficial to the environment and the climate.."
So vegans take note? “I’m not against veganism but am alarmed at many of the meat substitutes on the market which are highly-processed and contain ingredients imported from all over the world.
“We want to attract the younger flexitarian consumer- and there are more of them than vegans - and to promote a healthy balanced diet that includes high-welfare, low-impact, fully traceable and excellent quality red meat.”
Duff is overseeing some pretty exciting tie-ins with other Scottish producers, such as the Edinburgh Butter Company, Blackthorn Salt and Macduff Distillery for new marinades and flavourings, and is looking to expand his offer with Herbmajesty free-range chicken and pork. If The Butchers’ Cut takes off, these may be added to The Gannet East’s menu in future.
Ivan Stein, chef and co-patron of The Gannet in Glasgow and Edinburgh, said: “This is great for us. We’ve been working with MacDuff for years as what they do matches our ethos of buying direct from small-scale local farmers, growers and producers and maintaining close contact with them.
“The Butcher’s Cut is a great opportunity to offer something new and different. It’s a move that creates a link between the raw product and the final dish. We want to show customers what you can do with what they’re buying at the butcher’s as some may not have the confidence to buy meat and cook it at home. They’ll be able to see the direct line between producer and plate, which is what we’re all about.”
And how will the beef be cooked?
“At The Gannet East we use plancha and oven, so we use cuts that lend themselves to quick cooking. It suits our simplified menu, which we’ve tailored to suit the high-footfall, quick turnaround environment we’re in at Bonnie & Wild. Our protein-based dishes are already selling well to the younger demographic and we look forward to developing that.”
ENDS