A different animal
Geronimo Inns has gone a bit Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on us. In using the hairy one's name, we are of course referring to his penchant for living off every last shred of whatever unfortunate animal has crossed his path on any given week.
The animals in question for Geronimo are Dexter cows. A bit smaller than usual-sized cows, the breed is increasingly popular for its outstanding flavour, small joints and minimal waste. After an initial trial in five of the company's pubs, whole carcasses are being supplied to other pubs in the estate with both chef and butcher given free rein to create a special menu of dishes using everything from prime cuts of steak to bone marrow.
The idea is the brainchild of Ray Brown, director of food at Geronimo. "As a food-led company part of our job description is to educate customers," he says. "We wanted to stand out from the crowd. So many people are looking at food provenance and flagging that up, but the focus should be on quality."
The plan is to eventually phase out other cuts of beef on the menu, including beefburgers, and make everything from the bought-in carcasses, from joints for a Sunday roast, to mince for making burgers from scratch.
The cows are all reared on the same farm in Yorkshire. After slaughter, the carcasses are matured for five weeks and butchered on demand by Select Butchers in East London, with chefs able to choose the cuts they want. Special menus of the dishes, such as steak diane, braised leg of beef, slow-roast chuck roll and trimmings, steak tartare, rib-eye with bone marrow, braised beef and ale, steak and oyster pie, burgers and cottage pie, are displayed in the pub.
Dishes range from £5 to £20 in price. Costing the meals is slightly tricky as Geronimo purchases by weight, including all bones. Brown says: "It's probably a nightmare for an accountant. When companies become too big they become too controlled over cost, they become money machines. We want to stop as much of that as possible. Dexters will end up financially benefiting us."
Staff are trained on the dishes at a special tasting so they are confident explaining the rather unusual offering to customers. Some pubs have even named their cows, or launched competitions among customers to come up with a name and held a countdown on the pub's blackboard until the next one arrives.
The freedom of having a whole carcass to work with is both rewarding and demanding not only for the chefs involved, but also for the butchers. With the freedom to choose what cuts to use, including chuck roll, fore-rib, topside, silver side and flank, and how to cook them, it's a chance to revive old dishes and come up with new ones.
"There is a huge training aspect with our chefs. They need to understand it. Each one regularly rings the butcher to ask what different joints they can use," says Brown.
Toby Barrett, head chef at the Northcote in Clapham, South London, was one of the first to receive a Dexter cow at his pub. "It's a great collaboration between chef and butcher," he says. "Our butcher is using skills he says he hasn't used for 15 years. Listening to the history of the cuts and their names is fantastic. Dermot is a trained master butcher but there's been no demand for the sorts of cuts we are now using. We're hopeful about bringing them back.
"Also it means we get to be creative. It's an education. It's fantastic to use all of the meat. It makes you proud to be a chef."
So far, it has taken each pub that has taken a cow about two weeks to work though it.
"There were worries that we would be left with meat, but customers have loved it. We've had quite a few people asking when the next cow is due," says Brown.
As the idea is introduced to more pubs on the estate Brown has quite a job on his hands training staff and chefs on the new approach. But Geronimo is in it for the long haul. Daisy, Bessy, Buttercup and Clover, your days are numbered.
