Return of the old school butcher

Spent the weekend in London for a birthday party. Stoke Newington in northeastern Hackney Borough is a small town in the big city. Home to many immigrants and recently getting more and more trendy. That’s why its interesting to see, what’s going on at the foodshop front. Apparently one of the new trends is the return of the small scale businesses. „Meat N16“ (Stokes Zip-Code) is an excellent example. This tiny butchery is a major (window-)shopping experience, provided you like meat. Beautiful pieces, nicely arranged in vitrines and cooling cupboards, chopped and cut under the hungry eyes of the customers on woodblocks. N16 offers besides that sausage production trainings for beginners and I was so lucky to get some of the results as part of the birthday buffet. Fingerlickin‘ good in the true sense.
The new trend is also taken up by some immigrants. While most of the pakistani led groceries are unpretentious and neonlit mini-supermarkets, some of them present their produce in a new, but in fact old school manner. A good example for this is Stoke Newington Green, a grocery that spreads the feel of a mid-last century shop with its wooden trays and careful presentation of their fruits and vegetables.
The only thing I havent seen in Stoke is a classic dairy-/cheesemonger. Maybe a job for a postmidlifecrisis agronomist? We’ll see, the top quality english cheeses would be there.
I hope the return of the old school grocers is a longterm development. The consumers behaviour will decide; when they shop there, at least partially, the shops can survive.