Best of Melbourne 2019: city’s top 10 butchers revealed
If you’re looking for a top spot to buy your Christmas ham and turkey, here’s the answer. We grilled you on Melbourne’s best butchers and you delivered — did your favourite meat supplier score a place? SEE THE FULL LIST OF WINNERS
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When it came to smoking out Melbourne’s best butchers, we gave you a grilling — and you delivered.
Melbourne is a veritable meat market where suppliers of juicy steaks, sizzling snags and tender roasts are concerned, with butchers from every corner of town making the grade.
No bones about it, you love your locals, nominating hundreds of your favourite purveyors of fine meat in our next Best of Melbourne poll and swamping us with thousands of votes.
It’s clear our butchers are a pretty special bunch, always willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to deliver to their customers.
If you’re looking for the top Melbourne spot to buy your Christmas ham, pork or turkey, we’ve got you covered.
It’s time to get crackling — we’ve carved up the results and are ready to plate up Melbourne’s top 10 butchers.
MORE:
MELBOURNE’S TOP 10 MECHANICS REVEALED
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MELBOURNE’S TOP 10 DOG GROOMERS REVEALED
MELBOURNE’S TOP 10 CHILDCARE EDUCATORS REVEALED
MELBOURNE’S TOP 10 COFFEE SPOTS REVEALED
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MELBOURNE’S TOP 10 FISH AND CHIPS REVEALED
WHERE TO FIND MELBOURNE’S BEST HAIRDRESSERS
10. L&L Master Butchers, Bentleigh (equal tenth)
452 Centre Rd
For young business partners Lee Robinson and Luke Iles, family is everything.
And it’s what drives them as they run their successful shop, L&L Master Butchers.
“We did our apprenticeship together and we’ve been working together for the last 20 years,” Mr Robinson says.
“We were brought up in a family-run business which was sold out to a bigger company and we wanted to retain those values and so we decided to go out on our own and have that family-style business reinvented again, where we make everything in-store by hand, all generational recipes that have been handed down to us. We were apprenticed by an English smallgoods maker and we’ve refined those recipes since we’ve been here.”
The pair, both 36, bought their Bentleigh shop nearly five years ago and have set about sourcing free-range and locally grown produce from around Victoria.
They also sell homemade lasagnes, soups, bolognese sauces, meatballs, pies and sausage rolls and supply local golf clubs and restaurants.
“We’ve got two apprentices and then we’ve got a handful of local schoolboys that come in and help us and it’s very much a family dynamic, and we take a lot of pride in what we do and we try and produce the best stuff that we can,” Mr Robinson says.
The duo have their own on-site smokehouse and process all their own hams and bacon, which has won best in Victoria two years running at the Australian Meat Industry Council and PorkMark awards.
Their bone-in ham has just won silver at the PorkMark awards.
Mr Robinson says the pair love customer service and have “a lot of pride in producing food for people at home that really brings people together”.
“Food really brings people together at the dinner table and we like being part of that experience with people,” he says.
Rod Sturt says Lee and Luke offer “high quality product, personal service, good humour” and have “worked tirelessly to build this fantastic business from nothing”.
John Harrop says they give great tips on how to cook meat perfectly, leaving him cooking like a chef.
Carla Magid says the boys were even able to accommodate her unusual request: “I’ve asked for special meats (crocodile) and they managed to find me some!”
More: https://llbutchers.com.au/
10. Deer Park Quality Halal Meats, Deer Park (equal tenth)
807 Ballarat Rd
When Murat Buyukyazici bought Deer Park Quality Halal Meats eight years ago, it was “dead”.
“It had a really really bad reputation, I used to sit there on a Saturday, which is meant to be the busiest day, and just play with my fingers all day and do nothing,” he says.
“I threw out heaps of meat just to keep the quality good and the standard good, buy in carcasses again and just try to do it the honest and old fashioned way.”
It worked, and now he hasn’t got time to have a break.
Butchering is in his Turkish family’s blood, and they’ve owned the Istanbul Butcher on Sydney Rd in Brunswick since 1981, where Mr Buyukyazici spent hours after school and on weekends.
He’s never done a formal apprenticeship, joking “my apprenticeship went for 15 years, when you work for a family business you’re always an apprentice”.
“We just got thrown into it and that’s it, we never had a chance to leave the shop,” he says.
He decided to open his own shop for the challenge.
“I personally think if you’ve got a good product it doesn’t matter where you are, even if you’re at the top of a hill, people will come,” he says.
All the shop’s meat is halal, but Mr Buyukyazici says his customers come from a diverse range of cultures.
“Even though we’re halal the majority of our customers are Italian, Greek, Maltese, it’s just a diverse variety of nationalities and backgrounds,” he says.
“I think they really love the product that we serve, and it’s consistent, and we actually break our backs trying to be consistent.”
All the shop’s meat comes from Gippsland, with fresh deliveries arriving daily.
Mr Buyukyazic operates on a simple mantra: “I said to myself if you’re not going to eat it don’t sell it. That was our main motto and I also said that to my staff, if you’re not going to eat it don’t sell it, turf it out, throw it in the bin and we’d rather lose 30, 40, 50 bucks than lose a customer.”
Murvet Altikulac says: “Murat is an absolute gem who thrives on pleasing his customers and always provides the best quality meat.”
Serkan Tek says Murat “lives for the customer”, while Aise Sahin agrees he “shows so much enthusiasm and love towards each customer”.
Yesmin Arslan says she enjoys the organic range of meats and the shop offers a very clean workplace and high quality meat.
And Omer Dautovic sums it up: “Five star standard, old school bloody good butcher.”
More: https://daleel.global/listing/deer-park-quality-halal-meats/
www.facebook.com/pages/category/Butcher-Shop/Deer-Park-Quality-Halal-Meats-299977727206439/
9. Harris Family Butchers, Bentleigh
73 Mackie Rd
Rohan Harris started his working life making false teeth — now he’s selling top-notch meat people love to sink their teeth into.
And it’s all thanks to his late dad, Daryl — a butcher.
“I’m actually a dental technician by trade, I made false teeth for probably 10 years, and then my boss at the time, his son was coming into the business and I was going to get pushed out, so I was sitting at home … and the old man said ‘you’re not staying home, you can come and work for me’.
“It was only supposed to be short term, and 36 years later, I’m still here.”
The family has strong roots in the Bentleigh area, and Mr Harris senior — who previously owned a shop in Moorabbin — always eyed off the Mackie Rd business.
“He always wanted to buy this shop so the chance came up and he bought it,” his son says.
Mr Harris, who attended Coatesville Primary in Bentleigh East, says he loves working with people and supplying good quality products.
“I’ve made some fantastic friends over the years and it’s a real community around here,” he says.
“We’ve seen so many changes over the years, it runs in cycles, you see the old people and a lot of them have passed away now and then you’ve got the young ones coming back into the area, so it’s all for them getting them back into thinking about local shopping.
“The young ones are lazy shoppers, they tend to do the one stop shop, whereas if they come here they can get what they want, we can cut it, we can do anything really.
“We sell good quality meat, I was always taught that by dad — you always sell good stuff and people will come back.”
Mr Harris, who sources all his meat locally, says it’s not surprising he’s wound up a butcher.
“As kids we were always around shops anyway, dad used to drag us in every Saturday morning and he’d make us come in and clean the fridges, that was back in the old sawdust days.
“I guess it gets in your blood a bit because of the old man being a butcher all his life.”
Ashlee Coleman, who’s enjoyed Rohan’s sausages, steak and mince for 26 years, says he knows every customer by name.
“They are friendly and it feels like family when you walk in,” she says.
Roxanne Caruana says: “Rohan gives old fashioned service. He knows every customer’s name and makes the best sausages in Melbourne.”
More: https://www.facebook.com/Harris-Family-Meats-1647076758864115/
8. Ashburton Meats, Ashburton
235 High St
You know you’ve made it when the 2019 Melbourne Cup winner gives you a shout-out in his victory speech.
That’s what happened when jockey Craig Williams won the race that stops the nation on Vow and Declare in November.
“He actually thanked Ashburton Meats and Paul for supplying him with meats throughout the year when he won the Melbourne Cup,” owner Paul Klooster says.
“He’s a local here, he actually had all his gear that he dropped in so I had a whole display in the front window, previous trophies that he’s won, so I had the Geelong Cup, and the Cranbourne Cup, I had probably six or seven silks, a horse saddle, a whip, a helmet and everything that he dropped off.”
Mr Klooster has worked at the business since 1989 and took ownership seven years ago.
Only last week he was named the Australian Meat Industry Council’s retail butcher of the year for the third time running.
He says he was just a youngster when he got his start in the shop.
“We lived down the corner from Ashburton and mum and dad were taking us kids on a trip to Bali and I just basically went along every shop door along Ashburton and asked if they had any work, and the bloke who had this shop at the time said ‘can you come back tonight and start washing dishes?” Mr Klooster says.
These days, Mr Klooster sells his meat under his own brands — Gippsland Pure Beef and the Gippsland Lamb Co. It’s grass-fed, with no growth hormones or antibiotics.
He also has his own food range exclusive to Ashburton Meats, Paul’s Fine Foods, stocking 41 lines including condiments, chutneys, jams and aioili, and makes marinades from scratch in blenders with no numbers or preservatives.
Mr Klooster says he goes out of his way to make sure his staff are happy “because it reflects on the counter”, and tries to keep “ahead of the game”.
“And I make sure that every single customer is treated like a celebrity, and we have a lot of celebrities that come here,” he says.
“I’ve even had (Prime Minister) Scott Morrison in-store.”
Desi Longinidis says she drives from Blackburn, enjoying “the best customer service and best meat”.
Gayle Williams says: “It’s like walking into your own home, they know your name and sometimes what you want without asking for it.”
And Nick Boltuc, who enjoys the eye fillet and gourmet sausages, says the meat “always gets ripper reviews at barbecues”.
More: https://www.ashburtonmeats.com.au
www.facebook.com/ashburtonmeats
7. Rob’s British Butchers, Dandenong
177 Lonsdale St
Are you a UK expat hankering for a taste of home?
Some pork pie? Scotch eggs? Haggis perhaps?
Then Rob Boyle is the butcher for you.
Mr Boyle, who moved to Melbourne from Nottingham in the English midlands in 1984 with wife Jill, is one of Melbourne’s best traditional English and Irish butchers.
The affable expert says he was a “normal red meat butcher” when he first landed, taking a while to find his feet while working for several different continental butchers.
Eventually he decided to go it alone, opening Rob’s Continental Butchers in Palm Plaza on McCrae St.
“It never really took off because understandably Germans like to buy from Germans, Swiss like to buy from Swiss, they feel confident,” he says.
“A few of my customers said ‘why don’t you make pork pies, why don’t you make blood pudding’ and things like that and we thought it was old hat and that nobody really wanted it.
“But we got an old oven which had two temperatures, 0 and 2000 degrees, so you had to time your pork pies for about 20 minutes and if you did them any longer you could play ice hockey with them.
“We didn’t have any money, we only got by on half a shoestring, and we just plodded along and we started to make a bit of black pudding, and I asked the abattoir for some blood and they sent me 20 litres and I thought that was about 20 times too much.
“I just took two litres and made a little batch of black pudding, I just got out the old recipe books I brought with me, made them up into horseshoes, put them on top of the counter to cool down.
“I went and washed up and I came back out an hour later and I said to Jill ‘where’s the horseshoes’ — I made about a dozen and a half —- and she said ‘I sold them’.
“I said ‘you’re joking me’.”
He started dabbling in other English recipes, scouring markets for old cookbooks and turning out the likes of English gammon, bacon and sausages, and in 1997 relocated as Rob’s British Butcher to Lonsdale St.
Today, Mr Boyle makes 250kg of blood pudding a week, sending it as far as Darwin and Perth — and he’s even had people say they’ve eaten it in Bali.
He also dishes up 150kg of haggis, 2500 pork and steak pies and 500 Cornish pasties a week.
But the road hasn’t always been smooth, with the shop running into hard times in the late 90s.
They turned to the Ringwood Highland Games to raise awareness of their existence, and got a Scottish folk rock group called Claymore to “blast out all day” from the rooftop.
It worked, and these days they’re a Dandenong institution, with customers travelling from “every single part of Victoria”, from as far away as Sale and Shepparton.
Chris McAlinden says Rob’s home-smoked Christmas ham is “sensational”, as is his selection of cured bacon and pastries and pies.
“Always happy to see you, always chatty and friendly and exceptional produce. We drive 30 kilometres just to visit,” he says.
More: http://robsbritishbutchers.com.au
www.facebook.com/robsbritishbutcher
6. Char Char Char Butchers, Parkdale
258A Como Parade West
America’s “Don Bradman of smoking”, Tuffy Stone, shops at Char Char Char when he’s in town — that’s how good it is.
And to think owner Glenn Dumbrell — who now boasts a “cult following” among Melbourne’s thriving barbecue community — was once on the cusp of giving up butchering.
Mr Dumbrell ditched his craft for 16 years because he was worried about the physical stresses of the industry when he was older.
But after doing some part-time butcher work, he realised he was enjoying it again — and its changing nature meant it was less taxing on the body.
“My partner Maria wanted a coffee shop and I kept talking her out of it, she was a legal secretary, and in the end she said ‘why don’t we get a butcher shop’ and I said ‘we may as well. I don’t know how to make coffee’,” he laughs.
Char Char Char was born four and a half years ago, and is now a Melbourne leader in the low ‘n’ slow barbecue movement.
“Food in Australia has just exploded and it’s become interesting,” Mr Dumbrell says.
“I went to Brazil this year to a barbecue festival.
“There’s a show called Pitmaster in the States and all the judges and those sort of guys, they come here to do classes here, they shop with us, they compete over here.
“Tuffy Stone, who is the Don Bradman of smoking, he’s won six world titles, he shops with us when he’s in Melbourne.
“Wayne Mueller, who owns Mueller’s which has got a James Beard nomination in America for cultural significance — it is the mecca in Texas — he was here three weeks ago.”
Mr Dumbrell is heavily involved with the Australasian Barbecue Alliance (ABA), which has a whopping 80,000 members — proof of the movement’s growing popularity.
“I’d say I’m the first butcher in Melbourne who probably expanded it and got the range in and probably worked with barbecue people, I’m the first one who’s listened to them and given them the cuts they need,” he says.
“I’ve probably been the most accessible butcher in American barbecue.
“We’ve got the best food in the world but when Weber bought the Webers out 30 years ago they didn’t really teach us how to cook properly.
“We’ve just discovered how to use them properly and we’re bloody good at it and we’re giving the Americans a real run for their money, we’ve had quite a few teams go over there and compete.”
Mr Dumbrell, who has twice been nominated as the ABA’s personality of the year, runs a 5500-member strong barbecue Facebook page called the Wolfpack and says he responds to messages at all hours.
“I think if you’re going to do something, if you don’t love it you’re probably not doing the right thing, “ he says.
Brett Gray says Glenn is a “true gentleman”.
“After five minutes you will understand. Men’s health, Aussie businesses, great service and good food,” he says.
Harris Polites says Mr Dumbrell is “always happy to help in the barbecue scene” and serves “the best quality Australian meat going around”.
Bryce Leigh says Char Char Char is a “new school, old school artisinal butcher that supports local farmers and goes that extra mile every day”.
And Daniel Pettigrove says: “They sell real quality meat that reminds us why Australia creates the best and freshest food. Their service is impeccable.”
More: www.charcharcharbutchers.com.au
www.facebook.com/charcharcharbutcher
5. Keilor Continental Butchers, Keilor
690 Old Calder Highway Service Rd
The James family is a “dynasty” when it comes to Melbourne butcher shops, having owned 13 over a 100-year span.
And the story of their four-generation company reads like a biopic.
The business traces back to 1919, when, shortly after World War I, Ernie James worked for a slaughterman and learnt his craft.
His grandson, Len Jnr, says Mr James visited the orchardists around Shepparton, proffering “a body of beef and six lambs and a pig”.
“He would approach the front door of the orchardist’s homestead with a bag wrapped around his arm and the blue heelers guarding the house would rise at him, and he’d kick them under the bag and then he’d say ‘what do you need missus?’ and she’d say ‘12 loin chops and a leg of lamb, you got any nice pork chops and a roast?’” Mr James Jnr says.
“He’d make a bit of mince on the cart with an old hand mincer and then he’d go to the next farmer.
“He was on eight times the basic wage back then, he was the wealthiest young man in town, and one of the most hard working, I’m told.”
Ernie then moved to Melbourne, where he was conned by a “Squizzy Taylor-gangster type” into buying a supposed butcher’s shop in Sydney Rd, Coburg with his 200 pounds’ life savings.
The conman ran off with his cash and left him with an empty shop, chucking in a block for good measure.
Ernie then lived in Hawthorn, and rode a pushbike to St Kilda at midnight to start at 2am as a second-in-charge to make his money back.
The enterprising young man stumbled upon a closed butcher’s shop on Glenferrie Rd, got some lamb bones from a mate and started chopping them on the block so people thought he was busy — and the trick worked.
With only his daughter helping him make sausages, Ernie had a queue of customers 150m-long, waiting with war coupons to buy meat.
There was also a second shop on Bridge Rd, Richmond — but when the Great Depression struck, Ernie couldn’t pay his wholesalers and was forced to walk away.
Roll on years down the track, and Ernie’s son Len Snr entered the trade, aged 26.
Then, his son — Len Jnr — began his apprenticeship at 18.
And today, Mr James Jnr’s sons Tom and Jack own Keilor Continental Butchers while their dad manages the shop.
“We work very hard as butchers, I’ve done about 80 hours this week,” Mr James Jnr says, tearing up.
“I’m so proud of my sons.”
Tom and his dad were both awarded the William Angliss Memorial Award — the “highest award in meat” — 35 years apart.
Jack, meanwhile, works as a senior foreman installing airconditioners, then comes to the shop in the afternoons to “wash dishes and make rissoles” while running the business’s social media. Their older brother, also Len, has also been trained as a butcher.
Mr James Jnr says he loves the attention to detail and the “passion in the cutting to make every serve the same around the table”, as well as the smiles from happy customers.
“We start young and work hard,” he says.
And they’re still using Ernie’s 100-year-old recipes.
Bridie Patterson, who enjoys the bacon and maple sausages, says “the pride that both Tom and Jack hold in supplying the local community with top quality produce” makes her smile.
Rachel Farrugia says: “These boys are just brilliant, awesome produce, excellent knowledge and a passion for what they do.”
And Sue Paterson adds: “These guys take butchering into high craftsmanship. Premium product, great prices, and if you want something special they will make.”
More: https://jamesbrothersmeatco.com.au
www.facebook.com/KeilorContinentalButchers/
4. Kelly’s Meats, Tooradin
98/1 South Gippsland Highway
Long-time Kelly’s Meats manager Luke Nagel says butchers need to diversify — and he talks from experience.
Mr Nagel, who joined the Kelly family’s business in 2001, knows the importance of social media, running the 5600-member strong Victorian Barbecue Alliance Facebook page.
And he says plenty of his custom is driven from Facebook.
“Butchers have to diversify themselves, they’ve got to find other avenues to draw people in,” he says.
“You can’t just sell cheap meat and expect people to come in.
“With our market we’ve got 5600 on the Facebook page, plus our own personal page — we’re probably up around 10,000 people that follow us.
“We put something up and it brings them — this morning I put up some eye fillet at $80 a kilo, the wagyu, and I’ve only got one left.
“Social media is probably our biggest thing. It’s a matter of having the reputation and people following you.
“I can put up a special on a Friday night or a Saturday morning and before I even start labelling anything they’re already sold and people just come in and pick them up, it works really well for us.”
Mr Nagel did a mature-aged apprenticeship at Kelly’s Meats’ Brandon Park shop — which has since been sold — and now oversees both the Tooraddin and Cranbourne stores, a wholesale business and an online store.
The company has a strong reputation among the Victorian barbecue movement, and in September was invited to the US to compete in the invitation-only American Royal, placing 78th in the world.
He says the meat industry is “constantly evolving”.
“It’s kind of a foodie area, at the moment, 10 years ago it was more fashion in shopping centres, but now shopping centres are trying to move towards the foodies so you’ve got sushi bars and things like that.”
Kelly’s Meats sources their meat from around the country — their lamb comes from Ballarat and beef from the likes of Cape Grim in Tasmania, Sher Wagyu in Ballan and Bindaree Beef in NSW — and also sells smokers, rubs and sauces.
Ben Donnelly, who buys wagyu brisket, says “shop here once and you’ll never go anywhere else”.
Sam Guy praises their “extremely high quality meat sourced from the best farmers in Australia“, and “their dedication to helping people cook it”.
And Lucas Annabell says: “Luke runs an amazing butchery, with great cuts, competitive prices, always professional, but most of all is a good bloke.”
More: https://kellysmeats.com.au
3. DC Meats, Diamond Creek
6/72 Main Hurstbridge R
Daniel Hudson whipped out to grab dinner at his local takeaway last April — and came home owning a butcher shop.
Mr Hudson, a labourer, made the career move thanks to his long-time mate, business partner and butcher of 35 years, Scott Orchard.
“I was literally getting dinner from the shop next door and I saw the shop was for sale so I rang him up and I was like, ‘do you want to run a shop?’, and he was like ‘yeah for sure’, so I went home to my missus and told her ‘I think I just bought a shop when I bought dinner’,” Mr Hudson laughs.
“That Friday we met with the landlord and we put in an offer and that was it.”
The shop had run as a butchers for 20 years, but had struggled through several owners and was “completely empty” when Mr Hudson and Mr Orchard took over.
Now it is thriving, with a lot of help from “the backbone of the business”, Mr Hudson’s mum Lorraine, who’s in the shop twice a week cooking lasagnes, family pies and shepherds pies.
“Her home meals are unreal,” Mr Hudson says.
“I grew up here my whole life and pretty much my whole life there’d be 20 kids over for dinner, she’d feed half of Hurstbridge and now she’s feeding everyone again.”
While Mr Hudson plans to eventually complete an apprenticeship with Mr Orchard, it’s his “brother from another mother” who is the meat guru.
“Scotty can do basically anything,” he says.
“He makes a very broad range of sausages that he changes nearly every week, there’s always at least a dozen flavours that he makes himself.”
He believes customers appreciate their “old-school” nature, saying “if someone requests something or wants something, Scotty can do any of it.”
And he has another reason he thinks the customers keep coming back: “It’s probably just that I’m so good looking to be honest with you,” he laughs.
DC Meats also has a partnership with their neighbouring shop, Local Fine Foods, home delivering meat and fruit and vegetables together, free.
Kate Talbot says the boys’ porterhouse is “to die for”.
“Unbelievably good sausages and the brisket was so good we couldn’t carve it,” she says.
“Nothing is too much trouble, and the staff really know their stuff.”
More: www.facebook.com/pages/category/Butcher-Shop/Dc-meats-422870014948315/
2. The Meat Inn Place, Lilydale
333 Main St
John Andrew knew he’d be a butcher since almost before he could walk.
Mr Andrew’s dad, Russell, was a butcher in Bendigo and his son grew up on the shop floor.
“I’ve been in a butcher shop since I could walk pretty well — after school, Saturdays, Sundays,” Mr Andrew said.
To save the potential for a fractured father-son bond, Mr Andrew moved to the NSW Riverina town of Finley to do his apprenticeship.
He was “pushed along pretty quick” thanks to his childhood experiences, and returned to the Gisborne area to work with his dad, also spending time at the Little Creek Cattle Company in Coldstream before buying The Meat Inn Place five years ago.
It was a purchase in which he didn’t have much say.
“I didn’t really have a say, my wife (Jacinta) just saw it for sale and bought it and said ‘you’re doing it’,” he laughs.
“It’s actually turned out pretty well.”
Mr Andrew, who last week picked up the best boneless ham in Victoria at the Australian Meat Industry Council awards, says he is very community-focused.
He sponsors several competition American-style barbecue teams, and once a month hosts a shopfront barbecue, donating all profits to local homelessness charity Holy Fools.
The shop sells a bit of everything, catering for a wide range of budgets, and Mr Andrew tries to buy from Yarra Valley farmers where possible.
“We’re not really like any other shop that specialises in one thing, we do everything from high end wagyu down to everyday people meat and low and slow products,” he says.
“We do cheap meat trays and you can spend up to 300, 400 bucks a kilo on steak.”
Viv Foulsom, who buys the freezer pack, family pack, weekly meat tray specials and the kabana, says the quality of meat tastes “amazing”.
“We had forgotten what good food should taste like before coming here” she says.
Belle Pinder, who enjoys the kabana and scotch fillet and says the Christmas ham is a “show stopper”, says: “They’re always trying something new, while still doing what they do best.”
And Jacqui Nicholson says John and Jacinta “live and breathe this business, supporting and sponsoring many low and slow competitive BBQ teams”.
More: www.facebook.com/meatinnplace
1. Brian’s Gourmet Meats, Lyndhurst
Shop 8, corner Thompson Rd and Marriott Boulevard
From his humble “little shop in Cranny”, Brian Rollason home delivers his meat all over Melbourne — sending it as far as Apollo Bay.
That’s how good it is — and it’s why Mr Rollason and his shop, Brian’s Gourmet Meats, have been crowned Melbourne’s best butcher.
Aside from the fact the meat tastes amazing, the shop’s other big selling point is it’s 100 per cent gluten free.
In fact, Brian’s Gourmet Meats was the first Australian butcher to be fully certified by Coeliac Australia and is one of only two in the country with the title.
“Bernie who works for us, her little daughter is coeliac and I saw what sort of food they were offering and no one had a proper offer, so we wanted to change that way of thinking, which we have,” Mr Rollason says.
He went on a mission to source local gluten free ingredients, finding the best tasting breadcrumbs, pastry and marinades and spending hours experimenting, cooking and sampling.
“Our whole shop is 100 per cent gluten free so if you come in and you’re not a coeliac you can still eat it because it tastes awesome,” he says.
Mr Rollason entered the industry as a shop “clean up boy” when he was 12 to earn some pocket money, eventually completing an apprenticeship at Mastercut Butchers in Frankston.
He ran his first business, Meats R Us, in Mornington for 20 years, then did stints with David Jones and Woolworths before going it alone again nearly five years ago.
“I got sick of people telling me what to do that didn’t know what they were doing,” he says.
Mr Rollason and wife Angela source all their meat locally, from Gippsland and the Mornington Peninsula, and their home delivery service is hugely popular.
“I’d say from our little shop at Cranny we go down as far as Apollo Bay one way, we go to Bendigo, Ballarat, we go to Shepparton, we go all the way down to Bairnsdale, we do Phillip Island and all that area,” he says.
The shop prides itself on being an “old fashioned” butcher, with Mr Rollason joking: “That’s me, I’m old and in fashion.”
He believes his shop has “started a bit of a trend” of encouraging people to visit their local butcher rather than relying on the supermarket.
“You can buy what you want from us, you don’t have to buy what the supermarket sells you. If you want one chop you can buy one chop.
“We’re old fashioned, we can do the old things which people want.”
Jasmine Lacey, who enjoy’s Brian’s chicken kievs, says the shop makes having coeliac disease easier and allows her to “still eat the good stuff”.
Rhonda Bell, who orders the lemon and parmesan chicken schnitzel, says she always receives “a very welcoming hello, fantastic service, lots of variety and then a cheery goodbye”.
Scott and Tracy Wallace say: “Friendly, open and welcoming staff who sell top quality meat, never had anything that wasn’t perfect from the shop.”
And Wendy Jeffrey raves about Brian’s “banging burgers, sensational steaks, scrumptious sausages, variety of hearty hot spots and sensational service with a smile”.
“First class,” she says.