T-Bone Tour I: Hussey Butchers

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This review of Hussey butchers is the first review by our new author: “Steak Boner”, a steak lover so passionate about T-bone steak that he won’t stop eating it until he finds the best T-Bone in London.

Steak Boner makes it to Wapping

I’m on a quest to find out which London butcher has the best T-Bone steak. My First week sees me hit up Hussey Butchers, a traditional butcher in Wapping, East London.

I’d finally made it to Wapping. I somehow survived the lovely up-and-coming neighbourhood of Shadwell intact and google maps had placed me directly in front of… The Hussey Green Grocer!? I felt like someone google troll was having a right laugh at me. But suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I caught red chunks of meat hung from the shop display. I swear, if Heaven had a store front, there would be aged meat hanging from it too. So I joined a small queue forming outside Hussey Butcher eyeing up those gorgeous chunks of Beef.

An image of the store front of Hussey Butcher
Hussey Butchers’ Storefront

Hussey Butchers is a family run butcher, with Ian Hussey, the main butcher, serving the community of Wapping with quality meat for over 50 years. The butcher has a broad range of meat, but only sells high quality beef from cattle raised to produce meat (they do not sell meat from ex diary cows).

Hussey Butchers’ T-bone Steak

The butcher counter was stacked with enormous cuts of steak. I asked the butcher if he had any T-Bone steak and he grabbed an enormous rack and carved off a large chunk weighing in at 700gm.

An image of the butcher at Hussey Butcher's carving a T-Bone
Carving the T-Bone

The butcher explained that the steak was from a Hereford cow. This is a breed of cow that came from Hertfordshire in the West Midlands. The Hereford cow, identifiable by its white head and red-brown body, is beef cattle meaning that it is breed specifically to become delicious.

An image of Hereford Cows
Lovely to meat you (Hereford Cows) – Source wikicomms.

The steak was a medium-light red colour indicating that the cattle was reasonably young (Hussey Butchers tell me that the beef is usually from cows about 2 years of age). The steak was dry-aged (a process of storing the meat in cool temperatures which breaks down the meat and improves taste and tenderness) for 21 days and had a small amount of marbling (little bits of fat throughout the muscle which, when cooked, are supposed to make the steak a bit tastier).

An image of a T-Bone steak from Hussey Butchers being rested prior to cooking
Resting the T-Bone before cooking (rest for at least 2 hours before you cook)

Cooking the T-Bone

Cooking the T-Bone steak can be tough as you’ve got two very different cuts of steak (The Sirloin and Fillet) at two different sizes.

I ended up cooking the steak for about 2 minutes 30 seconds a side and rested it for 4-5 minutes before eating. The result was an excellent looking medium-rare steak.

Eating the T-Bone

The T-bone looked great at all stages on its journey into my mouth. I was about to eat it and I was excited. I started with the Sirloin. The sirloin wasn’t the easiest to cut, but despite that it was quite tender. The sirloin had a slight beefy taste but the taste didn’t hold beyond a bite or two.

An image of a carved T-Bone steak cooked at home and bought from Hussey Butchers
The cooked T-Bone from Hussey Butchers, ready to be eaten.

The fillet was good, it was pretty tender (though not melt in the mouth) and had a slight taste to it (as much as you can expect from a fillet).

The T-bone disappeared pretty quickly and at no stage was a chore to get through.

Judgement time

All in all this was a pretty good T-Bone steak. Hussey’s rank is a bit of a moot point for now as Hussey Butchers is the first stop on my glorious T-bone tour of London. But check out my hit list of steakhouses and keep an eye on the leader board as I continue to visit more steak houses.

Don’t forget, if you know a great butcher that I should check out let me know about it in the comments section below.

T-bone tour of London Leaderboard
Wapping
A tender T-bone steak with an enormous Fillet section and moderate beefiness.
Cost per kg: 27.50 per kg Beefiness:
Tenderness:
Breed: Hereford Aged: 3 weeks Marbling: Some

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