SOLE Butcher.

Kerrie Road Butchers
6 Kerrie Rd
Glen Waverley, VIC 3150
(03) 9802 0857

I often rave about my local butcher. When I first started shopping SOLE, he was the first person I approached with my tentative "Where is this stuff actually from?" questions. Instead of withering my budding SOLE shoots, he enthusiastically answered me, and gave me the confidence to delve deeper, and become more confident in approaching my providers. And it recently occurred to me, that I talk about him a lot, but I've never given him a shout out. I've reviewed spices from interstate, olive oil from overseas, but never given my humble, local butcher a shout out.

All snags made on the premises

And here's the thing. A few people who've gone to John, as a result of reading this blog, get back to me surprised that it's so "normal". I don't quite know how to respond to that. Maybe any butcher associated with me should have Nag Champa burning, statues of Amateratsu in the window, Baba Yaga flavoured sausages and wrap their roasts in Feminist coloured paper.

And here's the thing. In offering to take some snaps and do this post for the guys, I realised how absolutely bloody normal the place is. It's a bog standard suburban butcher shop. There is nothing overtly SOLE (whatever that means) about it.

It's the questions that you have to ask, that unlocks this unprepossessing shop's SOLE.

All the beef and lamb are sourced from Cardinia, the chooks from the Mornington Pen. They stock free range chooks and eggs from Lilydale, and their pork comes from Hastings. They smoke all their own small goods on the premises, make their own snags (we're having the chicken and asparagus tonight), corn their own beef. They do a sensational range of boerwors sausages and biltong (dried jerky, South African style). They stock the ubiquitous marinated chicken wings and schnitzels, but their standard T-bone is some of the best beef eating around.

All pretty bog standard stuff. The difference with the guys at Kerrie Road, is that they have realised that "We travel all over Victoria to bring you the best!" ISN'T necessarily the answer the punters today want to hear.