Carnivore

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Craft Butcher Built on Old-Fashioned Principles

Carnivore in Sidcup operates on a philosophy that is straightforward and uncompromising: do things the hard way, because the hard way produces better meat. Owner Richard has been working in the trade since the age of 13, training at Smithfield College where he won awards for craftsmanship and represented England in the 4 Nations Creative Butchery Competition. That foundation shaped everything Carnivore has become — a shop where BBQ and grill-quality cuts are prepared with the kind of attention that factory production lines cannot replicate.

Made In-House, Start to Finish

The shop's motto — Rare Quality, Well Done Service — is more than wordplay. Sausages are made from scratch in full view of customers, not behind closed doors. Bacon is hand-cured on site. Gammons are dry-cured and cooked in-house. Carnivore even built its own smoker to extend that control further. Many of the marinades come from original recipes developed in the shop. The goal, as Richard describes it, is to return to the pre-war era of butchery, before rationing pushed the trade toward speed and volume at the expense of flavour.

The People Behind the Counter

Richard's career spans managing some of London's top butcher shops, and he has supplied chefs including Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and James Martin, as well as television productions such as MasterChef, Saturday Kitchen and The F Word — on which he appeared to demonstrate cutting and sausage-making. Alongside him is Ryan, his nephew, who won his first sausage competition at 16 with a venison and red wine recipe and went on to become the 2014 South East Region Champion Young Sausage Maker and a finalist in the Premier Young Butcher Competition. Food stylist Rob Allison has called Richard "not just an outstanding butcher able to source and prepare the highest quality meats, but also incredibly accommodating." Chef and food stylist Richard Harris echoes that: "attention to detail, consistency and exceptional produce rounded off with first-rate customer service."

Grill-Ready Produce, Seriously Sourced

For those who take their BBQ and grill seriously, Carnivore's sourcing standards extend to seasonal and festive produce as well. Free-range bronze turkeys from the Romney Marsh, slow-reared on wheat and vegetables with no additives, and geese that forage on grassy pastures and hedgerow berries, are among the carefully selected products the shop stocks — each dry-plucked and hung to develop flavour in the traditional manner. It is the same rigour applied to every product on the counter year-round.