A Cut Above the Rest

A cut abovethe rest

The Meat Safe is the kind of butchers where you’ll find friendly service and an eagerness to deliver above and beyond, whether you’re after a string of sausages or a fore rib of beef. WORDS | Gail Williams IMAGES | Matt Jelonek

Amar Chaudhary is full bottle on the dietary habits of Subiaco luminaries such as Janet Holmes à Court, Adam Gilchrist and Eric Mckenzie.

The high profile names are among his 1,500 weekly customers who regularly exchange banter with him in the suburb’s last remaining independent butcher shop, The Meat Safe.

Amar is the affable manager of a charming red T-shirted team who strut their stuff in the prime – no pun intended – Crossways’ location at the entrance to Farmer Jacks where for the past 17 years there has been a roaring trade in sirloins, aged rib eye and osso bucco.

The blokes, and one young woman, Kabita, holding court with a constant throng of regulars..

Stories are swapped, cooking tips offered and sometimes – for the special customers – Amar throws in a complementary goat curry he has whipped up himself.

The team put in punishing 12-hour days but that does little to dim the friendly smiles, offers of stickers and lollies to the kids or a comforting chat with a lonely elderly widow – all side serves to the handmade sausages, marinated lamb shanks, grass-fed beef and Lilydale chickens.

Amar says the reason for the outlet’s popularity is not just the outstanding meat.

“I learned early on that you need to know your customers’ names,” he says. “Our team make it our business to use them and ask about their families. And it’s a genuine concern. We really care. You can tell if someone is having a bad day but they do appreciate the interest we show for what is going on in their lives.”

It’s a skill he learned in his early 20s when he was a flight chef with Emirates, serving lobster thermidor to his VIP passengers.

He had taken the chef’s posting to

Dubai after growing up in Mumbai, sharing a two-bedroom home with 12 family members. At 24, he moved to Australia for a better life and scored a job at Cottesloe’s prestigious Boatshed Market in the Butchery where he prepared ready-to-go meals such as duck al’orange and beef wellington.

It was there he decided to do a butchery apprenticeship and three years later, he walked away from Perth’s Royal Show with the Best Butcher title and, later, the second ribbon in the Best Pie Maker category for his chunky wagyu beef pie.

Since moving to The Meat Safe eight years ago, he has maintained a following from some of the old Cottesloe customers who cross suburbs just to pick up a pre-roasted chicken, a marinated leg of lamb or some pork cutlets.

They all receive the same friendly service and the customers reciprocate the love in their own endearing ways.

“They bring in gifts of wine and chocolates at Christmas time and some of them even send us postcards when they go on holidays,” says Amar. One customer paid for his regular coffee at nearby Spring Espresso (now Hang's Espresso).

The question his team hate most?

Do you sell veggie burgers?

“We’re a butcher shop!” is the reply. But it’s not only the banter – and, of course, the talk about cricket, one of Amar’s biggest passions – which keeps customers coming back.

Amar is very proud of the quality of the meat and the way it is displayed in the cabinet.

“We break up around half of the meat we sell here and make all our sausages here using natural casings.” RECIPE

AMAR’S Marinated Goat

Ingredients

6 large desiree potatoes scrubbed and cut into 4mm thick slices 1 onion, thinly sliced 2 cloves garlic, crushed Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 sprig rosemary, leaves removed and roughly chopped 30g butter 1 x 1.6kg leg of goat, on the bone 400 ml chicken stock Olive oil for brushing Green vegetables to serve

Method

Preheat oven to 200°. Lightly oil a roasting tin.

Layer the potato, onion and crushed garlic with seasoning in the roasting tin. Scatter with rosemary and dot the butter over the top. Place the goat on the potato, then pour in enough stock to come about threequarters of the way up the side of the potato layers. Season with salt and pepper.

Roast for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 170° and roast for a further hour (for medium). Remove the goat from the tin, cover and rest in a warm place for 10 minutes.

While the meat is resting, increase the oven temperature to 200°. Brush the layered potato with a little oil and put it back in the oven to crisp up.

Serve the goat with the potatoes and your choice of green vegetable.

Does he still like to cook? Yes, but, interestingly he chooses to cook Tom Yum or lobster thermidor.

“After working so much with meat, I like to cook seafood,” he says. And that made us laugh so hard we almost collapsed.