AD Paton, Largs – April 2011

Traditional has always witnessed people “going doon the watter” in search of pleasure. The town of Largs on the Firth of Clyde has long been a destination for those pleasure seekers and as a consequence the town has developed a café culture with ice cream parlours and sweetie shops taking up the predominant sites.

Nestled amongst the outlets catering for those with a sweet tooth is quality butchers, A D Paton.

The first impression at Patons is of a fresh food shop, attractively presented trays of really tasty looking products. The uniform cutting and neatly displayed trays demonstrate years of traditional west coast skills and the personal service is delivered with a hearty welcome, cheery chat and friendly banter.

Largs like many other towns used to sustain many butchers shops but Patons are the sole survivors and that is clearly as a consequence of their continual investment and upgrading of their premises and fittings.

The shooting trips to Germany led to Allan meeting German butchers and he included some continental style when he last refitted his front shop.

Just as the neighbouring ice cream shops have come up with all sorts of new flavours and combinations, this local butcher has developed a wide choice of alternative meats. Both Allan and Scott are keen hunters shooting deer and wild boar. Their passion for the sport has taken them to Poland, Germany and Tunisia and taking this forward they have created a dedicated game processing room where their 'personally selected' wild Scottish venison is skinned, cleaned and inspected.

At weekends Allan and Scott shoot red deer, fallow deer and roe deer in Griffin Forest between Aberfeldy and Dunkeld. Scott has his certificate from a level one Deerstalking Course and they have also the facility to pluck and clean game birds – duck, pheasant, guinea fowl, quail and wood pigeon. Game birds come from Cardeny Estate in Perthshire and full provenance on all these items of produce is known to Paton's.

Wild Boar is just one of more than a dozen speciality sausages made in rotation and the game also provides filling for a range of attractive pies all baked in the front shop. Poachers Pie and Mixed Game Pies sell alongside the traditional Steak Pie.

In addition meats such as bison, buffalo, kangaroo, ostrich, crocodile, alligator etc are stocked so that in Largs Sundae Dinner can be very different.

Meat buyer Neil Ewing lives locally and he supplies Paton's beef and lamb from JF Finlay at Wishaw, pork comes from Robertsons who are just down the road in Ardrossan. Open 8 until 5 six days a week, shop trade is not as cyclical as it used to be. It is steady all year round, on fine days barbecue trade can be good but like most the footfall can vary with the weather.

AD Paton in Largs may well have been around a long time but there's every chance Scott's infant sons Logan and Mark could be running this shop in many years to come.

Attachments:

• PatonsofLargs.pdf