The Butcher Shop & Grill is less a restaurant than a culinary institution. This vast meat empire in Sandton City spans 650-seater dining rooms, a deli and butchery, wine shop, bar and take-away service. It serves up to 900 steaks and around 800 bottles of wine a day and is famous around the world.

Established 16 years ago by the indomitable Alan Pick, who is gradually handing over the reins to his 24-year-old son Dani, the Butcher Shop has remained as popular as ever, despite a dynamic new wave of competition in Johannesburg from steakhouses such as The Local Grill. But it’s not resting on its laurels: there’s a new deli, expanded butchery shop and the development of a domestic, Kobe-style wagyu beef industry.

Many of these ideas are being driven by Dani, an energetic young buck who says that a passion for quality meat is in the blood. “My grandparents moved to Kalk Bay from Lithuania and set up a butchery there,” he says. “My grandmother was one of the first female butchers in South Africa and she ran the show. My father has been involved in the restaurant business for 45 years and ran restaurants in London and New York – he’s probably best known for his restaurant Late Night Al’s in Hillbrow, which was the place to be seen.”

Dani says the trick is to maintain those qualities for which The Butcher Shop is known while moving with the times. Therefore, the quality of the Chalmar, hormone-free beef remains the same, as does the free-range chicken, Karoo lamb, biltong and boerewors (made in-house by the skilled butchery team), seafood and Loch Duart salmon. The same goes for the friendly service, which extends not just to tourists and businesspeople, but to local workers who swing by for a takeaway prego roll at lunch, many of whom are personally greeted by Dani.

“It’s the personal service that we are known for,” says Dani. “Some of our staff have been with us for years and I grew up here as a kid. We are making some things more modern, and we travel a lot to find out what’s happening around the world. We keep reinventing ourselves, but some things, like the service, will remain old-school.”

What is new is the wagyu beef being sold in the butchery (and soon in the restaurant) from a farmer an hour away from Johannesburg, and also from Australia. Compared to normal beef, it has intense fat marbling that renders down to produce a wonderfully intense flavour. “South African beef is generally very lean compared to other countries’, but it’s actually the fat that produces the flavour,” Dani says. “These wagyu cows live in a relaxed environment and you can really tell the difference.” While wagyu beef from Kobe in Japan can reach astronomical prices, the SA version is not so painful at R320 a kilo to take away, or around R165 for a steak in the restaurant.

Like the rest of the restaurant’s beef, it matures for up to 38 days on the premises in order to increase the flavour and make it more tender. Meat on the bone is dry hung while the rest undergoes a wet ageing process. Diners can choose their own cut and size of beef from the butchery, making a ceremony of placing an order. While beef takes centre stage of the menu, from sirloin, rump and T-bone steaks to steak tartare and oxtail, Dani says items such as oysters, salmon, lamb shank, half deboned chicken and ostrich fillet are hugely popular. Starters include grilled baby calamari, snails, beef carpaccio and a salted lamb cutlet dish called Izimbambo Zemvu.

Surprisingly, there is a vegetarian option too. I heard on the grapevine that Dani’s sister is a vegetarian and wondered how that went down with the family. “It’s not a problem,” laughs Dani. “She visited a dairy farm when she was about 12 and now she will only very occasionally have a piece of white meat. My mother also eats really healthily, but my father and I make up for that: we have to eat red meat every day to check on the quality.”

By Claire Hu

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