Macelleria in Swan St, Richmond is a modern butcher’s shop that cooks for diners

POP in for a butcher’s at this shrine to excellent Aussie meat, which is cooked from the cabinet to order, writes Dan Stock.

“TO beef, or not to beef, that is the question!”

We’ve already eaten our weight in carpaccio and seared rib eye dripping with its juices, savoured “sushi di chianti” — beef tartare — and the specialty Panzanese steak, thick and dense and gloriously chewy. There’s been sweet raw carrots and crisp celery and spicy radishes to dunk into peppery olive oil and swipe into fennel-seasoned salt, and garlicy soft cannellini beans and there’s bread, of course, that we smear with chianti “butter”(lardo). There’s been huge flagons of chianti (yes, wrapped in straw) passed among our newly made friends along the communal table.

Where to get the best steak in Melbourne

Raising the steaks for beef lovers

And the main event is yet to come. That comes heralded by a poetry-spouting, bistecca-wielding butcher in motorcycle goggles to whose question we all answer, yes!

From around the world we’ve come to the tiny Tuscan hill town of Panzano for the world’s most famous steak, the bistecca alla Florentina, served by arguably the world’s most famous butcher, Dario Cecchini.

There’s a feast of meat on show at Richmond’s Macelleria. Picture: Rebecca Michael

For more than 250 years, Dario’s family has been butchering here; he’s the eighth generation to be plying the trade but the first who’s turned keeping these ancient Italian traditions alive into a street party.

People from all over come to Antica Macelleria Cecchini where staff pour tumblers of wine, offer samples of salumi and lardo on crostini and where the music gets progressively louder – ACDC seems a favourite — as the afternoon goes on, all the while Dario conducts the controlled mayhem from behind his laden glass cabinet while beaming like the beatific butcher that he is.

It’s a bucket-list destination for anyone who loves their steak.

While there’s no poetry, there is a full cabinet of ruby red meat on show and waiting to be cooked for you at Richmond’s new Macelleria.

Choose the cut that then goes on the grill. Picture: Rebecca Michael

This is the first southern outpost of the Sydney butcherauant where it’s all about the meat, the whole meat and (give or take) nothing but the meat.

Here it’s beef from Tassie’s Cape Grim that’s on show in the cabinet, with T-bone and ribeye and striploin and rump ready to be whacked on the grill and brought to the table.

The meat, which is excellent, is well treated.

The simple, elegant cheeseburger. Picture: Rebecca Michael

The 350g of T-bone ($21.50) is salted confidently, the hotplate-seared meat traversing pink through burgundy close to the bone. It’s served unadorned on the plate bar a drizzle of olive oil, allowing the meat, dry aged for six weeks, to rightfully shine. I wouldn’t bother with the mushroom sauce ($2.95) blitzed into unappetising gravy, but I would add a side of great skin-on chips and a bowl of simple steamed beans and broccoli welcomely al dente ($5.50). There’s sausages, too; the chorizo my pick ($4.90), over the lamb merguez, or wagyu ($3.90 each).

With glistening black tiles, a touch of greenery and a murals of meat on the walls, the space is handsome and functional and while you order at the counter, a well-staffed team will bring your drinks and dinner to your table.

A young, keen team keep the meals coming at Macelleria. Picture: Rebecca Michael

In fact, the young team is great and a highlight. Keen, attitude-free and friendly, engaging and obliging, they are a credit. A full Friday night kept the kitchen busy, but it, too, kept the 90-seat dining room fed in admirably timely fashion.

Before Macelleria, founder Peter Zaidan was famed for his burgers and a decade perfecting his recipe has paid off. Here that means 100 per cent hand-ground Cape Grim turned into chunky patties served with a hint of pink on refreshingly old-school buns.

A squirt of tomato sauce and Russian dressing add homely vibes to the Classico’s tomato, lettuce and onion ($11.90), though I’d come back for the simple elegance of the three-cheeseburger, where thick crunchy pickles add the right amount of cut through to the mix of Colby, Monterey jack and asedero that still allows the beef to shine ($9.90).

The Striploin salad. Picture Rebecca Michael.

Burgers need beer and there’s Little Creatures, Furphy and James Squire on tap for $9 a schooner, while a half dozen reds – mainly big South Australians – offered by glass ($11) and bottle ($45-$50) take care of the steaks (along with a few whites).

And for the carnivores who still don’t make friends with salad? They will with at least 250g of beautifully cooked rump atop an admittedly bog-standard lettuce, cucumber, olive and tomato mix. It’s the ultimate Clayton’s salad ($19.90).

I imagine it’s a deliberate decision, but the offer of mustards would be the icing on the steak on an otherwise polished, keenly priced offering that backs up the novelty with skill.

In prime position for pre- or post-footy fuel, you can book, which is a huge plus. Pop in for a butcher’s.

Macelleria

87 Swan St, Richmond

Ph; 9425 9393

macellaria.com.au

Open daily noon-10.30pm

Go-to dish: Cape Grim T-bone

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