temper continues to encourage consumers to switch to ‘mindful meat eating’ with the launch of its January burger special and installation of in-house meat ageing fridges across all restaurants.
temper, the vibrant whole animal barbecue restaurant group in London, is continuing its efforts to promote ‘mindful meat eating’ throughout 2023, as it proudly continues to use all beef products from regeneratively farmed, slow-reared, pasture-grazed, rare-breed cattle, supplied by Charles Ashbridge in North Yorkshire.
Unsurprisingly, this meat restaurant isn’t going in for Veganuary, but rather continuing their mission to encourage guests to indulge switch from industrially farmed animal products to ethically and regeneratively farmed meat and to explore a nose-to-tail ethos. To make this mission even more alluring, temper has launched a burger special offer across all four restaurants, including their latest opening: temper Shoreditch. The ‘Hot-Tempered Burger’ (£16.00) will be available exclusively from Monday to Friday, from the 9th January at the Soho, Covent Garden and Shoreditch sites, and from 11th January at their City site. The burger features a non-industrially farmed, rare-breed Yorkshire beef patty topped with smoked brisket, chilli raclette cheese, bourbon-pickled chillis, house-made chilli sauce, lettuce and beef-fat mayo, served in a brioche bun with a side of beef-fat chips. This means that the meat in the patty, the brisket and even the dripping the chips are fried in can all have come from the same beast, with complete traceability, all aged and butchered in-house by temper’s chefs.
If that wasn’t enough, from now on and across all sites (Soho, City, Covent Garden and Shoreditch), all beef will be aged in-house – in specialist meat fridges – giving the temper chefs complete control over the quality and consistency of their meat. The meat fridges will also allow guests to pre-order steaks for special occasions and to specify how long they’d like them to be aged for, offering a bespoke alternative to a vacuum-packed mass-produced, industrially farmed cut you might find elsewhere.
These in-house meat ageing fridges will principally allow for temper to take full control over the meat they serve, and whilst the restaurant group has always worked very closely with farms to ensure the beef they offer is top quality, by bringing the ageing in-house temper is taking full ownership of the whole process. It also opens the door to experimentation: temper’s chefs have played around with ageing for some time, holding back cuts for up-to 90 days to explore with the flavours this produces, or ageing beef in truffle butter to create something completely unique.
For any special events, guests can contact the restaurant directly to discuss ordering a specific cut or size of steak, and to stipulate how long they’d like this to be aged for. temper will then earmark this meat in the fridges and have it reserved for the guest to enjoy during their visit.
At temper, consumers can always have the confidence that the meat has come from English farmers who take the best possible care of their animals and of their environment. Before that meat reaches the consumers, it is dry-aged, then butchered in-house, and finally cooked over fire. The meat that is served to the highest standard, and their commitment to quality means that their guests get exactly what they pay for: it is worth every penny.
David Lagonell, Chef Director at temper says: “Bringing the meat straight from the farm to our restaurants and taking ownership of all parts of the ageing and butchery process gives us more control over the product and means that we can guarantee consistency for guests, as well as offer them something special, with those reserved cuts. This is also a fantastic opportunity for our teams – we’ve always offered them the chance to explore butchery but we can now offer chefs the ability to age their own meat and to experiment through that medium. We aren’t aware of any other restaurant offering a more complete immersion in butchery skills for its team members, nor a more iron-clad guarantee of quality for its guests”
When it comes to sustainability this is something that is incredibly important to temper, and one thing they will never compromise on. There’s no ‘green-washing’ of the credentials here, no cutting corners or sacrificing animal-welfare and they do not simply pay to offset their restaurants’ impact on the environment and call it carbon neutrality. It’s easy to talk the talk, but here too they have chosen a farmer who walks the walk. Charles’ estates are managed regeneratively, meaning that whatever he takes out of the land, he puts back: whether that’s by planting trees, leaving land as meadows or minimising industrial fertilisers and mechanical intervention. Additionally, temper minimises food-miles by only using English beef, specialising in native and rare breeds, with animals live longer and happier lives.
