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Christmas in London 2009: Butchers and Fishmongers
Christmas Butchers

Christmas Butchers

If your Christmas turkey comes frozen from the supermarket, it's no surprise you only want it once a year. Here's a selection of butchers who can sell you a really tasty bird, or, if turkey doesn't tickle your fancy, varied and tasty free-range meat of all kinds.

Allens Butchers of Mount Street

117 Mount Street, W1K 3LA
If money is truly no object – and you fancy a bit of Victorian tradition for Christmas – then you can join The Wolseley, Galvin, Zuma and Scott's as a customer of Britain’s oldest butcher. They’ll sell you a good turkey, but their real speciality is game, including the wild geese that was originally a British festive fayre staple. Other options include quail (which are cheap, and make for a remarkably easy starter), grouse, woodcock and perfectly hung beef. All the meat is expertly butchered on the huge octagonal block that has dominated the shop floor for over a century.

Allens Butchers of Mount Street - Information

C Lidgate

110 Holland Park Avenue, London, W11 4UA
This 150-year-old shop scooped the ‘British Turkey Butcher of the Year 2007’ award, though since Bernard Matthews’ Golden Turkey Drummers won something in the same ceremony, we’re not quite sure how significant that is. Far more important is the fact that this family-run (for four generations) butcher sources its meat from some of the best micro-producers in the country, as well as the royal estates at Highgrove and Castle May. You can be sure that every animal they sell you is from a quality breed, and that they’ll be able to tell exactly where it was from, how it was raised and why it tastes so damn delicious. There are also prize-winning pies, and other prepared dishes available if you need to do some no-effort catering at any time.

C Lidgate - Information

Drings

22 Royal Hill, London, SE10 8RT
Greenwich is a good spot for your Christmas shopping. Beautiful decorations and lots of twee little shops give you the feeling you’re in a country village, there are plenty of good boutiques to buy chic gifts, and the market can supply you with grander and more unusual presents. Best of all, poultry specialist Drings of Greenwich is the only London stockist of turkey and geese from Goodman Bros’ excellent farm. Drings sits next to The Cheeseboard and grocers The Creaky Shed, making a trio of impressive traditional food shops.

Drings - Information

Ginger Pig

8-10 Moxon Street, W1U 4EW
This scintillating butcher (right next to La Fromagerie) owns a large Yorkshire farm where animals are raised with more space and better food than much of Yorkshire's human population. Rare-breed beef, free-range geese, Bronze turkeys, lamb, mutton and delicious gamey Mastergris chickens are all available, but as the name suggests, the real highlights are the pork products. This is the best place in London to buy a ham for the Boxing Day table, and you can also stock up on superb sausages, pork mince and bacon for the turkey trimmings, and all kinds of offal if you're after preparing something fashionably nose-to-tail. Incidentally, if you need a handy takeaway snack to see you through your Christmas shopping, the scotch eggs are quite the best we've ever tasted. Details are given for the branch in Marylebone High Street; there is also a smaller branch in Borough Market.

Ginger Pig - Information

Wyndham House Poultry

3 Stoney Street, London, SE1 9AA
Gordon Ramsay is, we think it’s safe to say, a man of fairly exacting standards. So if you do your turkey shopping in the same place he’s chosen for his restaurants, you can be reasonably sure of a decent bird. Ducks and game are also on sale, and they have their own home-made chicken stock, which will free you from a messy afternoon playing with carcasses if you’re making proper gravy. Since you’ll be in the heart of Borough Market, you can also get absolutely all the rest of your Christmas sorted out, and enjoy some of the tastiest takeaway in the capital. Call in advance to place your order though, or you’re likely to be disappointed. There is also a less specialised branch in Fulham.

Wyndham House Poultry - Information

Dickenson's Quality Meats

365 North End Road, London, SW6 1NW
Unlike most of the butchers we’ve listed, Dickenson’s is neither noticeably green, nor exceptionally organic. What it offers is meat that’s a bit better than the supermarkets’ and quite spectacularly cheap. You can build up your carbon footprint with outstanding, perfectly-marbled Brazilian beef fillets, buy unnaturally big chicken breasts for a tiny price, or snap up a 12lb turkey for the same cost as a quail in most of the other butchers in this article. If you think Christmas is, above all, about not losing your home in January because you spent your next mortgage payment on a turkey that has had a more comfortable life than your own children, then Dickenson’s is the place to go. If you’re down on a Saturday morning, it’s also well worth checking out North End Road Market, which has excellent, cheap cheese, vegetable and fish stalls.

Whole beef fillet (1.5-2kg): £25.99
Turkey: £4.40/kg (to be confirmed)

Dickenson's Quality Meats - Information

A Dove and Son

71 Northcote Road, London, SW11 6PJ
Clapham’s Northcote Road is a gourmet’s dream, with interesting oddities like the Hive Honey Shop, sitting next to world class cheese, fish, bread and wine stores. The crowning glory is this free-range butcher, where you’ll find that the queues start to build long before Christmas Day. Pies and suckling pig are on offer as well as the turkeys, and a team of expert butchers can give you all the help you need with preparation.

Bronze free-range turkey: £9.75/kg
Suckling pig: £80
(*Prices are approx and subject to availability)

A Dove and Son - Information

Sheepdrove Organic Family Butchers

5 Clifton Road, Maida Vale, London, W9 1SZ
There aren’t many butchers’ shops whose website advises visitors to "eat less meat", but Sheepdrove organic farm, who produce almost all the products sold in their London shop, is also a serious environmental organisation. Beef, lamb, pork and poultry are all raised with an incredible level of care – the young turkeys are played a soothing rural soundtrack during the time they spend in barns, so that when they are big enough to free-range, they aren’t shocked by the birdsong, the wind in the trees, and the distant traffic. Oh, and the automatic feeders are solar powered. Impeccable green credentials lead to superb produce, which also includes honey, vegetables and preserves.

Whole Norfolk Black and Bourbon Red traditional turkey: £12.49/kg (still to be confirmed)

Sheepdrove Organic Family Butchers - Information

Northfield Farm

Central Aisle, Borough Market, London, SE1 1TL
If you’re bored of turkey, and fancy innovating this Christmas, then Northfield Farm’s amazing variety of rare-breed British meats is a good place to start. The unusual sheep, cows and pigs on their large Leicestershire farm produce meat that is wholly unlike anything you’ll find on a supermarket shelf, or even in an ordinary organic butcher. They also do fantastic hams, sausages, stuffings and some of the best bacon in the country. The really ambitious Christmas chef can buy a 'three-bird roast' (a small bird stuffed into a medium-sized bird, stuffed into a larger bird).

Northfield Farm - Information