By our gastronomic–cultural correspondent Jenny Winn
London is no stranger to boutique butchers, but Fitzrovia has gone one step further: this week, Charlotte Street welcomed “The Existential Chop,” a butcher’s shop where every sausage, chop and cutlet comes with a footnote, a question, or occasionally, an apology.
The venture is the brainchild of Osbert Penhaligon, a former lecturer in continental philosophy who abandoned academia after an argument about whether Nietzsche would have preferred pork or beef. “I realised the sausage was the ultimate metaphor for existence,” Penhaligon told me, “a casing in which chaos, spice, and mortality are uncomfortably crammed together. To eat is to philosophise.”
Inside, shoppers encounter a minimalist interior: white walls, a single meat counter, and quotations from Kierkegaard and Sartre inscribed in raw linseed oil on the floor. Above the cold storage, a neon sign proclaims, “To Grill is To Be?”
The products themselves are provocatively labelled. One finds “Phenomenological Pork,” “Ontology of Lamb,” and “Deconstructed Duck.” Each purchase is accompanied by a short essay printed on handmade paper. A packet of sausages, for instance, comes with four paragraphs on Heidegger’s views of Being, concluding with the suggestion that frying them may or may not be an authentic act.
The opening night was attended by a curious mixture of locals and academics. Professor Miriam Wratt of the London School of Economics admired the “radical honesty of the mince.” Meanwhile, local resident Daphne Elwood was less impressed: “I just wanted two pork chops. Instead I got a lecture about the metaphysical insufficiency of gravy. And a bill for £27.”
Not all the customers were dissuaded. On Goodge Street, I met young poet Theo Cranks, proudly carrying a bag of “Absurdist Bacon.” “I don’t even eat meat,” he confessed, “but I needed the pamphlet. It’s changed how I look at breakfast cereal.”
There are, of course, detractors. The National Federation of Butchers issued a press release condemning Penhaligon for “bringing unnecessary angst into the sausage trade.” The Fitzrovia Council of Nutritionists, meanwhile, expressed concern that reading essays while cooking chops could present “an increased fire hazard.”
Yet The Existential Chop is already drawing international attention. Rumours abound that German television will film a documentary entitled Wurst und Weltanschauung, while a group of French philosophers are planning a symposium in the shop’s walk-in freezer.
Asked whether he had any regrets about leaving the ivory tower for the meat counter, Penhaligon was firm. “In the end, philosophy and butchery are pretty much the same thing. Both are about slicing, revealing what lies beneath. Except one requires a knife and the other requires tenure.”
The shop is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm. On Sundays, Penhaligon hosts “Dialectical Tastings,” during which customers are invited to sample different salamo while debating whether free will can coexist with mustard.
