A small butchery doing what the big fellas can't
On the corner of Kansas Street, right on Memorial Square, Scotty's Meats has been Martinborough's butcher shop for more than thirty years. It's the only one in town.
Walk in and the first thing you notice is the wall — hand-painted vinyl reading We Kill 'Em, You Grill 'Em and You Can't Beat My Meat. Butcher's humour, right where the whole shop can see it. The second thing is the salamis, hanging in strings off the shelving beside the counter. Those are made here. So are the sausages — mixed, filled and linked on site. Through the window you can see the team hard at work.
The range goes wider than most small-town shops would bother with. Beef and lamb through the long cabinet, pork belly and loin, chicken schnitzel, thigh cutlets and skin-off breast, venison when it's about — and a goat curry sausage that turns up as the sausage of the day. It's the one worth asking after.
Where the meat comes from
Scotty's works through Farndon Farm, but not on a take-what-you're-given basis. The stock coming through the door is locally raised and hand-picked. He buys quality, not cheap — it has to meet his standard before it goes anywhere near the cabinet.
The beef story is on the wall too. McFadzean Cattle Co, three generations of it. Wairarapa region, grass-fed, given the time to grow out to its full potential — and only the best of a two-thousand-head herd hand-selected for Scotty's.
The same principle applies to everything else he buys for the shop — lamb, pork, chicken, venison and goat. Thirty years in the trade has built a network that knows exactly what he's after: he gives them the description, and what comes through the door meets it. That's the reason it eats the way it does when it gets to your table.
The Cabinet
Beef, lamb, pork and chicken, with venison and goat when they're about — cut fresh, priced by the kilo
Made On Site
Salamis, sausages and bacon — all his own recipes
Barbecue Gear
Rum and Que rubs and sauces, charcoal and briquettes
Homekill
Cut, packed and labelled properly, back to you
Four on the wall
Framed by the door, and worth a look before you order.
More than meat
Organic full-cream milk from Levin in returnable glass bottles — $8.50, or $4.50 if you bring the bottle back. Local Martinborough eggs by the half dozen, dozen or tray. Rum and Que rubs, sauces and finishing seasonings. Charcoal and briquettes for the barbecue, and beef tallow for the ones who know what to do with it.
Two ways over the hill
Wednesdays — the refrigerated truck runs through the wider Hutt Valley and Wellington region.
Sundays — Scotty's is over the hill at the Brewtown Farmers Market in Upper Hutt, 8am till 2pm.
Same cuts, same bloke, different postcode. If you can't get to Martinborough, Martinborough comes to you.
Backing the next lot
There's another certificate on that wall, and it's not for a sausage. Scotty's is a Mayors Taskforce for Jobs and Youth2Work employer — taking on local young people and putting them into real work. In a town this size, that's not a marketing line. That's someone's kid getting a start.