Higgins Family Butchers

When the capital’s cutting-edge chefs want to create something innovative and magical, they first make a pilgrimage. They make their way to Sutton Cross, Dublin 13, to consult with the Oracle. To put it more simply, they go and have a chat with Rick Higgins. Rick Higgins is the meat maestro, the man whose charcuterie skills have given him a position as primus inter pares amongst Dublin’s great butchers. Rick Higgins is the source of ideas that provoke the creativity of the truly original chefs. He is the man who will lead you to the secret of the spinalis doris, for example, a thin strip of meat found between the sixth and twelfth rib which Rick describes as “the tastiest cut.” He can source Castledermot grass fed Angus, and age it for 40 days. He will age cote-de-boeuf for 80 day in Teeling whiskey. And, all the while, he is collaborating and coming up with new ideas to make the Sutton Cross shop even more of a shrine, most recently collaborating with Gaz Smith to create Little Lockdown North. Of course, it isn’t only chefs who make the pilgrimage. Every trip to Rick’s leaves every food lover with the feeling that they have found the Oracle. Indeed they have.