CONNNOISSEUR:THE DEMISE OF our high streets is well documented. Gone are the greengrocers, repair shops and butchers to make way for the thousands of square metres of supermarkets that make our lives so much easier and better.
Not according to Tom Cribbin, who this week opens his seventh Butcher’s Block in Dundrum Town Centre.
Unassuming and quietly spoken, Tom Cribbin knows his meat. He used to exhibit his knife skills on behalf of Ireland, which brings me to the leg of lamb I am holding as we stand in his newly refurbished shop in the gleaming shopping centre in Maynooth.
Tightly wrapped in plastic and showing chopped rosemary on the surface of the meat, the bone protrudes as normal. But his butchers have removed the large flat bone that is an integral part of a leg of lamb.
This way, he argues, you get the moist result of roasting on the bone, but it is far easier to carve.
Cribbin is totally customer focused. He wants feedback and he listens. Jimmy Burrows, one of his senior butchers, visits every shop in the group at least once a week and it’s his job to implement changes – usually on the back of customer comments. I ask where the bone in the lamb ends and Tom says here, then here, then he asks one of his staff as he is clearly unsure. “See what you think,” he says to me, “and let me know. I can change it next week.”
When it comes to meat, I’m pretty old-fashioned. Half carcasses, wooden butchers’ blocks and a bit of blood on aprons only adds to the experience, in my book.
I prefer to see marble slabs – an absolutely no plastic – but I can see the logic here. No butchering is done in the shops: it happens in a purpose-built factory in Rathangan in Co Kildare. As Cribbin points out, he cannot afford to use expensive retail space to cut up a carcass.
You can buy a pork chop at The Butchers Block, but there are also marinated versions such as chilli pork chop, Greek passion pork chop and Indian mystery pork chop. Beef is largely prime cuts and chicken legs don’t seem to figure at all, the bird is represented only by a sea of breasts.
Not so long ago butchers slaughtered and butchered their own beasts, using their skill and ingenuity to fashion even the oddest of animal parts into delicious, tasty meals. Nobody wants any of that anymore, according to Cribbin. Everyone wants quick and easy, with the emphasis on easy. Nobody can cook anymore, he says. There is no skill left, no knowledge, so where he used to sell more than 30 cuts of beef, he is now restricted to 10.
So how does he compete with the massive power of the supermarkets if he is essentially selling the same meat, I ask. He used to compete on price, marking everything up by the minimal amount possible, but that didn’t work. Now instead, he matches the supermarket price but offers really good discounts on different meats and cuts each week. In Maynooth, I can have roast beef at a 50 per cent discount and all fish is 25 per cent down (salmon, fish cakes, smoked haddock and cod). If you are a canny shopper and stick to the offers, shopping here can yield real bargains.
I’m not sure about the pineapples and fancy cut lemons in the display, but the back wall is a warm red with big colour photographs of sizzling steak, stir-fry and lots of yellow and red cut peppers. The staff are efficient, well-trained and eager to please. Just like those in a good old-fashioned butcher’s shop.
The Butcher’s Block has shops in Dundrum, Maynooth, Portlaoise, Douglas and Blackrock (in Cork), Waterford and Dungarvan.
If you can’t find what you are looking for, ask for Jimmy or leave a message. My guess is if you come back the next week, it will be there.