Few things suggest a love for meat than a life-sized, hand-crocheted leg of lamb, topped by knitted pineapple rings and glace cherries, surrounded by woollen potatoes, onions, peas and pumpkin wedges. 

This glorious art work, created by Australian crochet artist Trevor Smith, sits atop a high glass-fronted freezer cabinet at Laura Dalrymple and Grant Hilliard's new Feather and Bone retail outlet in Waverley.

A sibling to the sustainability advocate and whole animal butcher's original, and still-current, Marrickville shop and production facility, the three-month-old space resembles an exquisitely curated museum of meat and comestibles.

It begins with a distinctively beautiful dark olive and terracotta-edged frontage with a wide window displaying pastured and cured NSW pork and fermented chilli sauces from Kangaroo Valley.

Inside, it becomes a place to linger, chat, eat and ogle yearnfully.

At one end is a long, wood-edged, recycled concrete terrazzo table inlaid with cross sections of animal shin bones. At the other a large moodily lit photo of a cockfighting rooster eyeing meat-lovers from the back wall. 

Keen-eyed fans of Feather and Bone's Marrickville headquarters will recognise photographer Joseph McGlennon's work, part of his 2017 series, Heavenly Fighters.

They might also recognise the much-used butcher's block table, also from Marrickville HQ but once used by a long-ago inner west butcher on Illawarra Road.

In-between are fridges and shelves filled with cordial (Katie Swift) eggs (Oxhill, 12 Good Eggs), honey (Malfroy), flour (Woodstock), bread (Nonie's, Brickfields) and butter, milk and cheese (Burraduc and Pepe Saya). Their names read like artist titles, too.

But, the boss of the party, meat, is everywhere. A counter holds pastured pork loin roasts from McIvor Farm, pork shoulder on the bone from Stockinpiggle farm and lamb from Tenanbung Grazing.

There's a "Nurturing One Pot Wonder Cassoulet Kit" that feeds up to six people and includes duck stock, duck marylands, Toulouse sausages, lamb shoulder chops, smoked pork, haricot beans and herbs.

Fridges are filled with bacon, sausages, chicken, mince, steak, duck and cured products, all sourced from pasture-raised animals grown on regenerative farms. Every part of the animal is used at Feather and Bone, something emphasised by various trays of dehydrated pet treats on sale. 

Along with take-home meals, Waverley offers a small range of cooked food, including luscious sesame seed-scattered sausage rolls filled with pork and fennel, lamb and rosemary or, this week's special, a succulent beef and kimchi.

There are gooey ham and cheese toasties, with scamorza cheese, cucumber pickles, wild honey and wild ale mustard, and a spicy Moroccan lamb and chickpea harira soup.

All can be eaten at the big shin-pressed table while perusing Dalrymple and Hilliard's book, The Ethical Omnivore, or pondering three enormous animal carcasses hanging in a fridge.

Cheery and knowledgeable staff engage in chats about every aspect of the meat and products for sale.

All up, this is not a conventional butcher shop. Dalrymple and Hilliard have held events featuring talks from producers and farmers and there are plans afoot for one-off dinners and other food-centred events.

"We want it to be a space where you can come in, hang around and have a chat," Dalrymple says. "Where you can take the time to understand the stories of the products we're selling. Because there's a lot to learn. 

"It's not just a transaction, it's not just a commodity. Our whole business is organised around promoting and supporting regenerative agriculture and a an approach to eating, consuming and producing. Sometimes that takes a little while to talk through." 

Dalrymple encourages everyone to ask questions, get tips and share in a community of farmers, producers, butchers, suppliers and local customers that continues to grow.

"When you think about the farms we work with they are actually communities of creatures co-operating and competing and collaborating," she says.

"When all of those communities are working together, and there's lots of richness and diversity, you get an amazingly fertile landscape. People, human communities, are no different.

"Our [food] system infantilises us. We need to take back the power." 

The low-down

Feather and Bone 

Vibe Beautiful, collaborative retail outlet for sustainable whole animal butcher

Go-to dish Pork and fennel sausage roll, ham and cheddar toasties