Kerri T., Customer
"This store is like food porn!"
Doreen D., Customer
"If it wasn't for this awesome organic butcher shop, I'd move to
the country right away. You make T.O. a great place to live (and eat)"
Theresa S., Customer
"Finding The Healthy Butcher was like finding a lost treasure."
Tina, Customer
"You guys have the best meat that I've come across, I'm convinced.
I've bought from (store names deleted), and farmers markets... and you guys
surpass them all. Nice work, and keep doing what you're doing!!"
Catherine Mah, Customer
"Friday is my Healthy Butcher day. I am so enamoured of this store
that if the City were to declare every Friday to be Healthy Butcher Day, I would
be in full support of this important civic measure. Six reasons why shopping at
the Healthy Butcher is everything a neighbourhood butcher shop experience should
be (in no particular order): See the
Sugar and Ink Blogsite or
click here.
John M., Customer
"Congratulations, it 's nice dealing with a business that offers
such great products being dispensed by knowledgeable and friendly people with
attention to detail. I always feel good when I leave your store."
Customer posting on Greenpeople.org
“The Healthy Butcher has ruined me for life - I will never buy
non-organic meat again. From chicken to bacon to elk steak, it's the best meat
I've ever tasted. Plus, they have the BEST sausages in Toronto!”
Customer posting on Greenpeople.org
“The Healthy Butcher has ruined me for life - I will never buy
non-organic meat again. From chicken to bacon to elk steak, it's the best meat
I've ever tasted. Plus, they have the BEST sausages in Toronto!”
Marina C, Customer
"We tried your chicken for the first time ... my dad commented that
he hadn't tasted such fresh, delicious chicken since he was a kid
(back in the 40s)!"
Catherine & Guy, Customers
“Dear Mario, Ryan, Jonathon, and the rest of The Healthy Butcher Team,
Thank you so much for the beautiful meats that graced our wedding table.
23 people feasted for 5 days on eggs, sausages, peameal bacon, meatballs, and
neapolitan ragu, and the highlight, roast loin of pork with crackling prepared
with care and artistry by you, served Tuscan style. We look forward to
enjoying the Healthy Butcher's service, expertise, and love of good food again
and again."
Vivienne S., Customer
“To all the good folks at The Healthy Butcher, Best. Turkey. Ever. Your
brining mixture rocks, the turkey was the best I've ever eaten”
Sal R., Customer
“Hello Mario, The sausages were FABULOUS and
my dinner was a serious success because of them. No one could decide which they
preferred between the Vermouth
and the Thai sausages - a
testament to the success of both I think. So I was
singing your praises and talking about how wonderful you had been in negotiating
getting them here etc. Then lo and behold, one of my guests phoned this morning
to say your store was in the paper yesterday. Good for you. It seems you are
winning praise all over the place and rightly so. Thank
you once again.”
Penny F., Customer
“Hi Mario. I just wanted to take the opportunity to let you know that I
was finally able to have my dinner party for my Dad and that he was thrilled
with the elk roast. He even took the rest home so he could make sandwiches to
take fishing!
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you how impressed we all were with the quality and
taste of the roast. I have recommended you to my family and posted one of your
brochures in my staff room.
Thank you again for you wonderful service and for helping to make my Dad's
birthday dinner special. I look forward to the next time I can drop by your shop
and/or have the occasion to order something extra special for my family and
friends.”
Kristin F., Customer
“It was my roommate's birthday and I came in to The Healthy Butcher for
some steak. She was raised on a beef farm, so I wanted to impress her! The
butcher recommended a couple of lovely rib eye steaks and if he had been around
Queen and Bathurst later that evening, he would surely have heard me yell praise
from my rooftop patio! This was truly the best steak I have ever had and I will
never go back to grocery-store meat! Thank you for making my gastronomic
experience that much better."
Deborah D., Customer
“I just wanted to say thank you. For the first time in my life (I am 50)
I cooked a roast beef that everyone loved and enjoyed and wanted more - but
there wasn't any!”
Adele G., Customer
"Dear Healthy Butcher, Thank you for opening your store. I was in this morning
for the first time, and had great experience. Ezra was fantastic. He was very
knowledgeable, and provided a personal experience. I am very excited that I now
have a place to go to that cares about meat the way I do. It’s great that I can
find out where the meat comes from, and that all of the meat I will buy in your
store is hormone and antibiotic free, they way meat should be! I loved that
everything was clean and that my meat was handled with care. Your prepared foods
were fantastic too! I am certain that I will be a long-term customer, and I will
be sure to recommend you to my numerous friends who too, have been waiting for a
butcher that carries great clean organic meat, and provides personal service."
City Bites
“This is as pure an organic shrine as it gets, but not in some
hippy-dippy save-the-world kind of way: this is a gastro emporia first and
foremost, pushing the organic mantra as much for the enviro and health benefits
as for the superior flavours. In that way, the place is both backward and
forward thinking at the same time, harkening to an age before growth hormones,
pesticides and overcrowded stock pens.”
Jesse Mendes, Radio Host - CIUT Radio
"I always used to think it was normal to feel lethargic or mildly nauseous after
eating a burger or a good steak. It was the oil, I told myself; or maybe I just
ate too much. Meat is supposed to be heavy. Even when the media started talking
about hormones and antibiotics and other stuff in meat, I thought very little of
it; I assumed it was all over-blown.
I’ll never forget the first time I tried an organic lamb chop. The taste was
unbelievably succulent, even better than chocolate! I thought I’d died and gone
to heaven. But what really blew me away was that I felt energized from eating
it. As if I’d just given my body nourishment. It was a new feeling for me.
A trip into the Healthy Butcher is not only a feast for the senses, it’s an
education for any a young carnivore. I’ve learned more about meat in the past
six months than I have in my entire lifetime – and I have the people there to
thank for it. The staff are top notch. Alert, friendly, patient – and genuinely
committed to what they do, each and every one of them. No recycled sales
pitches, no attitude, no vacant small talk. It’s always a pleasure to visit, in
that neighborhood-feeling sort of way.
People who don’t buy organic have no idea what they’re missing, especially when
it comes to meat. Where flavor is concerned, there’s no comparison. Try one of
the chef's recipes and you’ll want to take him home with you. Mario and Tara deal
directly with local, ethical farmers, which makes me feel good about spending my
money there. A former lawyer and investment banker? Who would’ve thunk. They’re
totally in to what they do, and they’re two of the most genial, down-to-earth
people I know."
SteakGuys.com, Worldwide Steakhouse Rating Site
On our most recent visit, SteakGuys.com rated The Healthy Butcher the highest
rating possible - Magnificent .
To quote our reviewer, "Toronto's Finest Organic Butcher. Try one (or more) of
Mario's pre-cooked, vacuum packed New Yorks after warming up at home. You won't
be disappointed, and it is especially unforgettable with the right wine!"
Toronto Life
“If you’ve got a beef with the meat industry, shop at The Healthy
Butcher.” “Eating organic used to be an ethical choice; now it’s as much about
good taste as it is about being good. A new Queen West butcher shop satisfies on
all fronts. Certified organic chickens perch next to grass-fed steaks. Breakfast
sausages, sweetened with maple syrup and cranberries, could almost sub for
dessert.”
Gina D, Customer
"Hello, we have been customers for 6 months, there isn't one single thing we
have purchased from there, that isnt simply fantastic. The slow cooked
roast in vacuum packs is our favourite, it is the best comfort food after a long
cold day, but the hamburgers as well, are just great. Thank you
and congratulations on a wonderful old fashioned high quality and yet innovative
fresh new butcher shop."
Jacob Richler, National Post
“... a new organic emporium opened downtown ... they have done it in the
sort of professional way that enthusiastic newcomers to a business very rarely
display. Their wood-floored shop is bright and airy and handsom, its layout
intelligent. All prices are very fair. They have hired agreeable and highly
capable people... The lamb and chickens are of irreproachable quality.”
D. Grant Black, Globe and Mail
“The local butcher is dying out. But an updated gourmet breed is saving
the species from extinction... At their shop in the trendy Queen Street West
neighbourhood, the pedigree of every cut of their 100 per cent certified organic
meat can be traced. Sides of beef, pork and lamb are sourced from Ontario
organic producers, then carved by in-house butcher[s]. Whole chickens, turkeys
and ducks are brought in fresh: Nothing is frozen before it’s put on display.”
Jennifer Bain, Toronto Star
“Meat that is outstanding in its field.” “The opening of a new butcher
shop on Queen St. W. is cause for celebration.”
Tralee Pearce, Globe and Mail
“Prepared dishes like the veggies take up half the space, but organic
meat is the star of the joint. Whole carcasses are sourced directly from Ontario
farms and shipped to the shop, where... [they are turned] into fresh cuts.”
Yuko M, Customer
Hi Mario! Thank you for putting together a great evening. The
sausage making class was very interesting. It was
also nice to get to talk to you as well as the rest of
your staff. It really makes it feel like a neighbourhood store where you know
the local butcher by their first name!
