The Marche region of central Italy is a surprisingly beautiful but unknown part of Italy and for a while we have been looking for a supplier of traditional Marchese charcuterie. Last month we visited three producers on a trip to the region and we were won over by the Passamonti family at their salumeria in  More…

At the start of September Elliott and I went to Béarn and spent a day with Gilbert della Rosa, a food writer and author of a book about the cheeses that are still made in the Pyrenees during the summer transhumance and the shepherds who make them.
With him we drove to Lescun at the head  More…

For the past couple of months we have been eating all the profits from our new speck Trentino made by Massimo Corra in Coredo, a village 900m up in the alpine Val di Non.
Like prosciutto, speck is made from the hind leg of the pig but, unlike prosciutto, it has the bone removed and the  More…

We often get asked why we don’t sell a San Daniele ham. ‘Because our Parma ham is so delicious’ doesn’t seem to be a satisfactory answer for most people who believe prosciutto di San Daniele to be better, so here’s the long winded one.
There are 10 million Parma hams made every year by 189 producers.  More…

In between Cremona and Ferrara the Po river winds its way through an area of fertile agricultural land called the Bassa Parmense. It is famous for 3 things: Verdi (who was born in Busseto), fog and Culatello di Zibello.
Our Culatello di Zibello is made in Polesine by l’Antica Corte Pallavicina. This beautiful, 14th century estate  More…

Italian porchetta is a whole pig that is very cleverly deboned and rolled up with a mixture of different herbs and spices. These change according to the region where it is made so in Umbria and Lazio it will always include fennel seeds, in Tuscany rosemary and in Sardinia myrtle leaves. After stuffing, the pig  More…

Last Saturday Elliott celebrated the opening of Gergovie Wines at 40 Maltby Street with an early morning plate of tripe and a glass of red wine. Raef Hodgson and Harry Lester (the chef behind the Anchor and Hope and more latterly Auberge de Chassignolles) have created this new wine bar to showcase natural wines from  More…

Last week we were in Lombardy to visit Mario Cardinale Bosio who makes our bresaola in Lanzada, an Alpine village that sits 1000m up the Malenco valley, just off the famous Valtellina. Mario was a lawyer in Milan for 31 years before jacking it all in and buying the empty butchers shop in Lanzada. He  More…

We all know the Italians love pork but in the far north of Italy, however, beef is king. This is partly due to the relatively cooler climate: cows don’t like heat which is why olive oil, not butter, is the fat of choice in the south of Italy and also why sheep’s cheeses replace cow’s  More…

55 Stanworth Street is the railway arch next door to ours. On Saturdays you can go there to buy biodynamic fruit and veg from Fern Verrow or cheese and wine from the Jura brought over by Borough Cheese Company. During the week Dom Coyte of Borough Cheese makes Cheshire there.
Dom worked at Neal’s Yard Dairy  More…