My 4 wines for dry-aged meats.

Before becoming a practitioner of the butcher’s block, young butcher-maturer Kris Maccotta previously led a double life. As a musician, he left his home city of Marseilles and moved to Paris where he took part in several artistic projects. At the same time, he was also a keen photographer, notching up multiple shoots for chefs and prominent Champagne houses in particular.

But after he and his partner Marjolaine Patureau very nearly ended up vegetarian due to the amount of poor quality meat they had eaten, he chose to swap his guitar and his camera for a carving knife. Together, they opened Bouche in a busy Bordeaux street.

Bouche is a new-look butcher’s with floor-to-ceiling windows, echoing its ethos of transparency. Here, local-sourcing, partnering with committed farmers and showing respect for the product are prioritised.

After passing a vocational diploma, Kris started to work with whole carcasses carved using a method known as the Parisian technique where the meat stays tender. The house speciality is the maturation cellar where Kris puts the meat in a variety of temperatures, humidity and ventilation levels.

In its cabinets, customers can find dry-aged meat from Galicia, French Wagyu and occasionally some Aubrac along with free-range chicken from the Landes, lamb, duck and pork from Cantal or Corrèze. Each type of meat fully reveals the typicity of its breed or provenance. The product is in its natural state with fibres removed, it is tender with outstanding flavour. A fact sheet is provided with each purchase to ensure each cut is properly cooked.