ALL of the meat

The time that car­niv­o­rous Welling­to­ni­ans have been drool­ful­ly antic­i­pat­ing has arrived: Big Bad Wolf has opened in Wake­field St. This is a char­cu­terie with a local twist, as their prod­ucts incor­po­rate wild game ani­mals along with the more famil­iar­pork, lamb and beef. Beasts that have giv­en their lives for a high­er pur­pose are vis­i­ble in the back room being stripped down and under­go­ing an earth­ly tran­sub­stan­ti­a­tion into a glis­ten­ing array of meaty del­i­ca­cies, includ­ing sausages, ter­rines, ril­letes, jerky, broths and pat­ties. Look­ing into the cab­i­nets is a bit like being a kid in a can­dy shop, but for “can­dy” read “bits of deli­cious flesh”.

Every­thing is avail­able to eat in or take away. There are sausages made from veal, saf­fron, leek and thyme; thar jerky; rab­bit ril­lettes; and even a ter­rrine of alpaca, chili and pis­ta­chio. Local pro­duce is aug­ment­ed by some­times eye-water­ing­ly expen­sive import­ed small­go­ods such as air-dried wagyu beef and the leg­endary jamón ibéri­co de bel­lota. If you don’t believe that things like snails, cala­mari or rasp­ber­ries belong in sausages, then more tra­di­tion­al com­bi­na­tions such as pork, ched­dar and beef or lamb and feta might be more to your taste. Of the ready-to-eat lunch dish­es, the pork spit-roast sand­wich sounds as deli­cious as it is snig­ger­wor­thy. They also sell cheese, chut­neys and rel­ish­es, but this real­ly isn’t a place for those of a del­i­cate veg­e­tar­i­an dis­po­si­tion.

Alpacas: not just cute and fluffy, but also real­ly deli­cious.

Now if you excuse me, I’ll get back to my veni­son and rasp­ber­ry bil­tong.