Tarrant's Butchery

212 Jackson Street Petone

Jackson Street, Petone · Since 1988

Everything in the cabinet was cut in this building

Dave and Ana cut meat the way you want it cooked. You tell them what the dish is, they cut for the dish. Beef hangs three weeks. Bacon is cured out the back. Sausages go on Tuesday morning. Whole animals from five farms we have been to.

How to find us 04 568 3391

In this week

  • Beef, hung properly Sides hang twenty-one days before we cut. The single biggest difference from a supermarket.
  • Sausages, made Tuesday Eight kinds. Beef and onion, pork and fennel, lamb and rosemary, venison in autumn.
  • Bacon and ham, cured here Dry-cured ten days, smoked with manuka. Shrinks less in a pan because there is no water in it.
  • Lamb, cut how you want it Whole, half, or broken down. Tell Dave what you are cooking.
  • Chicken and free-range eggs Birds from Otaki, Wednesday and Friday. Eggs run out by Saturday lunchtime.
  • The Christmas book Turkeys, hams, boned and rolled lamb, pork with crackling scored your way. Opens first of November.

Open

  • Tuesday to Friday7am – 5.30pm
  • Saturday7am – 2pm
  • Sunday and MondayClosed
A butcher at work behind the counter of a shop

212 Jackson Street. The cabinet has been in the same place since 1988 and the block behind it is older than that.

What we do

Tell me what you are making

Everything in the cabinet was cut in this building. We buy whole animals from five farms we have been to. You come in and tell us the dish. We cut for the dish, not for the label.

  1. 01

    Beef, hung properly

    21 days minimum

    Sides come in whole and hang for twenty-one days before anything is cut off them. It is the single biggest difference between here and a supermarket and it is the reason the steak tastes of something.

  2. 02

    Sausages, made Tuesday

    8 kinds, no fillers

    Eight kinds, made out the back every Tuesday morning. Beef and onion, pork and fennel, lamb and rosemary, the venison ones in autumn, and four more that change.

  3. 03

    Bacon and ham, cured here

    10-day dry cure

    Dry-cured over ten days in the room behind the cabinet, then smoked with manuka. It shrinks less in a pan because there is no water pumped into it.

  4. 04

    Lamb, whole or cut how you want it

    Cut to order

    Whole, half, or broken down to whatever you are actually cooking. Tell Dave what the dish is and he will cut for the dish rather than for the label.

  5. 05

    Chicken and free-range eggs

    Wed & Fri

    Birds from a grower at Otaki, delivered Wednesday and Friday. Eggs from the same place, which is why they run out by Saturday lunchtime.

  6. 06

    The Christmas book

    Opens 1 November

    Turkeys, hams, boned and rolled lamb and the pork with the crackling scored the way you want it. The book opens on the first of November and closes when it is full.

Where it comes from

Ask which paddock your lamb came from

We have been to every farm it comes off. Beef and lamb from four Wairarapa farms. Pork from Levin. Everything is cut here.

  • Kaiwaiwai Station Beef, Angus and Angus-Hereford 62 km
  • Ngaumu Hills Lamb and hogget 88 km
  • Tuahiwi Farm Free-farmed pork 41 km
  • Waireka Poultry, Otaki Chicken and eggs 67 km
  • Kapiti Free Range Ducks, and turkeys at Christmas 54 km
Cattle grazing on hill country pasture
Kaiwaiwai Station, sixty-two kilometres over the hill. Most of the beef in the cabinet came off this country.

Behind the counter

Dave, Ana, and the ones who know your name

  1. Dave Tarrant

    Butcher, and the one who does the ordering

    Since 1988

    Ask him what is worth buying this week rather than what is on special. They are usually different things.

  2. Ana Tarrant

    Runs the shop and the Christmas book

    Since 1991

    Ask her about the book. It has about four hundred names in it and she knows most of the orders by heart.

  3. Sione Faleolo

    Butcher, small goods and the smoker

    Since 2009

    Ask him about the bacon. He changed the cure in 2014 and will tell you exactly why.

  4. Mel Tarrant

    Butcher, second generation

    Since 2019

    Ask her how to cook a cut you have never cooked. She will write it on the paper.

The shop

212 Jackson Street

  1. A butcher's display cabinet with cuts of meat laid out
    The cabinet on a Thursday morning, before the after-work rush.
  2. A butcher trimming a cut of beef on a block
    Dave breaking down a side. Twenty-one days hung before it comes out.
  3. Fresh sausages coiled on a tray
    Tuesday morning. Eight kinds, and the venison starts again in April.

What people say

They come back because we cut for the dish

  1. I have been going since I moved here in 2003 and I have never once been given something I did not ask for because they had it left over.

    Kirsty Wilford

  2. Asked for something for eight people and about forty dollars. Dave asked what I was making, then gave me a cheaper cut and told me how long to cook it. It was better than what I went in for.

    Tane Alicetown

  3. The Christmas ham has been the same for fifteen years and I will drive round the bays for it.

    Robyn Eastbourne

Getting there

Open Tuesday to Saturday

We do not deliver. Thirty-eight years and we have never worked out how to do it without the meat sitting in a van. Come in and tell us what you are cooking.

04 568 3391

shop@tarrantsbutchery.co.nz

Finding us

  • ParkingAngle parking outside the shop. The station is a five minute walk.
  • The frontageRed painted shopfront on Jackson Street. You will see the window.
  • Next doorBetween the library and the cafe. Easy to spot.

Open

  • Tuesday to Friday7am – 5.30pm
  • Saturday7am – 2pm
  • Sunday and MondayClosed

212 Jackson Street, Petone, Lower Hutt 5012