Norfolk week: de-lish – The bespoke charcuterie

Monday, July 5, 2010

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We’re currently on stay-cation in Norfolk looking after my parent’s farm, and one of the values we really believe you should do whilst on stay-cation is supporting local business. We’re very lucky that being in such an agricultural community allows us to be able to have a great choice of farm shops and butchers. But De-lish is a hidden gem I’m so lucky I found…

Jules started De-lish about 3 years ago. His interest in charcuterie initially started by curing meat for friends and using space at a local smokehouse. It soon became a bit too costly to give the cured meat away (I have the same problem with giving away too many cakes!) and he opened up shop in Wells-Next-The-Sea. He is an extremely affable character and it’s wonderful to see someone so passionate about food and how it’s produced.

All the meat for his products comes from less than ten miles away, it doesn’t come much more local than that! The recipes though are a are a range of traditional, exotic and made-up recipes. Absolutely everything is made by Jules, lovingly produced in small batches and you’ll see the cured sausage meats hanging in the corner of the shop when you walk in there.

My favourite is the “Sortov” which is “sort of” like brawn. When I bought some the first time I visited here I took all the goodies to work and didn’t let Chris have any of them. This time he finally got to try it and I think several positive expletives were used to describe it! I’ve also tried Wells Lomo (similar to Parma ham), Urutan – an asian spiced sausage with real pow factor to it and the “hot chocolates” – high quality cocoa chocolate with chilli and lime. There was also talk of his own marinated olives, something which I think would be extremely popular there.

There is, according to Jules, less than a handful of specialist places like his in the country and I can’t tell you enough how much his business deserves your support and encouragement. I love the fun that he has with the names of the products; his previous work as a tutor in english literature means he plays on words and uses local places as part of the product names too. You might be forgiven for thinking his products are expensive, because there are no prices up, but he is extremely competitive on pricing versus your average supermarket plus the knowledge that the animals your meat came from had a happy life and you’ve helped to reduce your carbon footprint by buying here.

I strongly suggest that if you are ever in the area that you go and visit the shop. Being a one man band, Jules hasn’t had the opportunity to be able to be able to expand selling his products online or selling to other businesses. But this, in a way, makes me feel privileged to go to the shop and meet the face behind the passion.

Visit the De-lish website here. Or visit De-lish the shop, in Staithe Street, Wells-Next-The-Sea, Norfolk.

Categories: Visit | Tags: norfolk, salami