The Butcher Who Loves Cows

Championing a nose-to-tail philosophy that is not just as a way of cooking, Dario Cecchini adopts the craft of butchery in order to honour the animals that he deeply respects.

- Words: Low Weixian

I HAD EXPECTED a man of few words—a traditional butcher: tough, burly, cleaver-wielding, with calloused hands. Instead, Dario Cecchini, hailed by The New York Times as the best butcher in the world, proved to be both erudite and expressive, leaving me to reconsider everything I knew about butchery and meat-eating by the end of our conversation.

During our discussion, Cecchini paused, his voice catching as he recalled a simple moment: a diner at his restaurant once sketched an illustration on a napkin. In the drawing, Cecchini sat atop a hill with a cow, each with an arm and a hoof over the other's shoulder as they gazed toward the horizon. “That,” he says, “is how I see my life. I love the animals. I honour them.”