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Shop Features
Victor Churchill – Sydney
Push past the brass sausage handles of the door and enter a romanticised world of mince, rib-eye and rump roasts. Bathed in a soft orange glow that you're more used to seeing illuminate bling, not beef, the shop is decked out in rich mahogany tones, with glass and copper shelving, as well as timber and cowhide walls.
Truly a local butcher like no other, combining the very best European haute-couture with a uniquely Australian sense of character and design.
The creation of father and son team Victor and Anthony Puharich, this remarkable butchery offers the whole package. extraordinary design, exceptional meat and charcuterie, knowledgeable staff and a profound sense of hospitality. Backed by five generations of butchers. the pedigree is certainly there, and matched by the history of the store itself – Australia's oldest continuously run butchery.
The name, 'Victor Churchill' is a tribute to the Churchill family who created Churchills Butcher Store in 1876 and to Victor Puharich, a master butcher and the founder of Vic's Premium Quality Meat who have become the fourth owners of the butcher shop in its 140-year history.
Claims that it is one of the most breathtaking stores in Australia are backed by the fact it won the 2010 International Interior Design Award for retail stores, held in New York. It was competing with retail stores worldwide, and against retail behemoths like Hermes and Louis Vuitton, yet walked away with the top gong.
Enough about the store, what about the food? This is where the attention to detail truly begins, with Victor Churchill offering an exciting array of seasonal, rare and special dry-aged products.
On the shelves and in the cool room, it's possible to find everything from the highest grade of Wagyu available in Australia, to chestnutfed Oberon beef, O'Connor grass-fed beef from Victoria, rare Berkshire black pork breeds, Wagyu Bresaola (a Victor Churchill innovation) and duck prosciutto.
Complementing the traditional range of products you'd find in a local butcher, are the house-made charcuterie, all expertly crafted by the resident chef, Romeo Baudouin.
The delicious creations include traditional pork, rabbit and duck terrines, parfaits and speciality sausages such as Saucisson and the traditional French cooked pork sausage.
While perfection and innovation are at the heart of everything Victor Churchill does, traditional customer service is the backbone of the business.
Both Victor and Anthony believe wholeheartedly that trust and knowledge are instilled in every sales assistant on the floor.
This extends to the expert butchers who provide meat to the customers' exact specifications. Victor Churchill is certainly a butchery that has to be believed.
Victor Churchill's, a butcher that looks like a Tom Ford boutique: sides of beef revolve in glass ageing rooms, steaks are displayed in glass cabinets. The quality and the care are way beyond anything I've seen anywhere else.
It isn't just organic gimmicks, it's an amazing professional concern for breeds, feed, ageing, preparation, storage and the techniques of butchery. Anthony Bourdain said it was the best food shop he'd ever been in.
AA Gill, The Sunday Times, 26 June 2011
Father and son team Victor and Anthony Puharich, offer the whole package. extraordinary design, exceptional meat and charcuterie, knowledgeable staff and a profound sense of hospitality. The pair come from a long line of butchers.
“While I hold strongly to the traditional values and methods of the industry,” says Anthony, “my goal is to always approach it from a more unconventional, innovative angle.
“Victor Churchill is the perfect example of this. I promised myself that if I was to ever do a retail butcher's shop it would be unlike anything else in the world.”
Exposed sandstone walls, uncovered during the refurbishment, serve as a reminder of years gone by, but the refrigerated, parsley lined counters have long since disappeared. Instead, butchers work at beautiful hand-crafted timber butcher's blocks on 'stage' behind floor-to-ceiling glass. It's a mélange of old and new.
The changes are not simply aesthetic. “We removed the traditional counter that was a boundary between the butcher and the customer,” says Anthony “We created the glass butchery, so there was no ducking 'out-the-back'.”
Elements of the theatre, art gallery and luxury boutique work together. The enormous Calacatta marble slab was cut into mosaic tiles and re-laid to follow the original grain. The hot and cold kitchens feature hair-on leather clad walls covered and protected by glass, from famed Texas-based leather artist Kyle Bunting.
Custom copper refrigerated cabinets line a wall where the premium cuts are displayed, together with meat specialities such as terrines, pates and parfaits prepared on-site in their hot and cold kitchen.
In the floor-to-ceiling glass walled cold room specialty cuts of meat and carcasses hang from a cog gear and metal chain rack, that slowly passes as customers look on, creating a distinctly Damien Hirst effect.
A Himalayan rock salt brick wall (which infuses the hanging meat with flavour and sterilizes the air) lends the store an extraordinary glow. The custom made 'sausage' door handles were cast in solid copper, using real sausages. It's an amalgamation of the very best European haute-couture with a uniquely Australian sense of character.
Still, nothing beats the mouthwatering smell of a grab-and-go wagyu brisket roll (or roast chicken with duck fat-cooked potatoes) wafting from the custom-built rotisserie in the back, cleverly reminding you that it ain't all just a feast for the eyes.
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