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.