There are those who eat to live.  And then there are those who live to eat.  The Healthy Butcher caters to the latter.  Whether you are buying fresh organic meat to be used in your own food creation or buying our gourmet prepared foods to be eaten by candlelight accompanied by a nice glass of wine, we ensure that what you’re eating instigates within you a passion for food and most importantly, has been produced the way nature intended.

OUR MISSION STATEMENT: 

To ensure your food is produced the way nature intended.

Organic food is not a novelty… it was the past and will be the future.  Eating fruits, vegetables, grains, or meats grown with pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, antibiotics, and other un-natural chemicals is ludicrous and unsustainable. 

Do you remember the days when you could walk into your local butcher shop to buy fresh meat grown locally by a farmer who cared about his animals?  When the cows would graze in large pastures? When the chickens had access to both indoors & outdoors and had time to sleep?  And when growth was determined by the animals eating habits, not growth hormones and anti-biotics.  For most of us, unfortunately, the answer is no.  Industrialization over the last few decades has brought us to this day of antibiotic stuffed, water injected, assembly-line cut, pre-packaged meat. 

The Healthy Butcher aims to restore an area of the food industry that has wrongly disappeared.  We are your good 'ole fashion butcher.

We invite you to read about Organics, Nutrition, our favourite Recipes and hope to see you in our store.

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The following is a little about some of the key people that make up The Healthy Butcher:

Mario Fiorucci and Tara Longo, Co-Presidents

Lawyer and Investment Banker turned Butchers.

Former Lawyer and Investment Banker, Mario and Tara left their large Bay Street Firms to do the unimaginable – open an organic butcher shop.  The Healthy Butcher was born out of their frustration of the difficulty finding good quality, fresh organic meat in Toronto and the difficulty of finding good quality prepared foods to eat in the comfort of their own home when their work schedules didn’t allow for enough time to spend cooking. 

So, they used their business savvy to negotiate a deal with long-time owner and furniture store operator Sol Borenstein to buy 565 Queen St West. in the heart of The Fashion District. After restoring the building to its original 1890 beauty, their goal is to provide downtown Toronto residents with a place they can trust to sell only the best organic meats and gourmet prepared foods that will bring a passion for food to their patrons’ dinner tables.

Ryan Donovan, Head Butcher

Jonathan Abrahams, Head Chef

Trained in England, Spain, Israel, and Egypt, Jonathan brings a worldly flair to The Healthy Butcher’s Express Gourmet prepared foods. After cooking at several Queen West restaurants, Jonathan feels at home in the kitchen of The Healthy Butcher. “More than anything, I like that I’m preparing honest products, using only the best organic ingredients and never trying to pull anything over our customers,” says Jonathan about working with local, organic & seasonal ingredients. Jonathan has found a passion for experimentation, and loves the freedom to whip up any dish on zero notice. “In restaurants, menus are created to last long periods of time and once written it’s the same thing over and over until the next menu is created; here, whatever is seasonal comes into the door as soon as its ripe with little notice – at that point, it’s ‘these are for you Jon, do whatever’ and I have to whip something up.” Jonathan loves the open dialogue with customers coming into the store and wanting to learn how to cook something for the first time. “To me, gourmet and organics are one in the same,” says Jonathan, “they are about using the best ingredients and letting those ingredients shine with minimal effort.”
 

Before and after photos of the storefront at 565 Queen St. West. 

The original wooden pillars and colours were restored and a knotty pine sign backboard was installed bringing the storefront to one typical of an early 1900's Queen St. store.