THE BEGINNING

The Neil’s Meats’ story began at Prahran Market over 50 years ago when Neil McNair won a council ballot to take over the stall of retiring butcher Jim Johnson of Jimmy’s Meats. Having worked as a butcher since he was 14 and with experience running a side business selling hamburgers on weekends, Neil decided he was ready to open his own butcher shop and Neil’s Meats was born. With his warm personality and razor sharp eye for quality, the shop quickly became one of Melbourne’s leading butchers.

TODAY

Fast forward to present day and the team is led by Neil’s son, Paul, who learnt the trade from his father with the same dedication and easy going nature. Paul brings a great wealth of knowledge and he and his team are responsible for the top-quality meats you’ll find in our display fridge. While Neil may not be in the stall as often as he used to be; he still takes a very active behind-the-scenes role, handpicking some of the cattle and overseeing the process before it arrives in the very capable hands of our butchers.

OUR COMMITMENT

At Neil’s Meats, we pride ourselves on taking that extra step when it comes to quality. Once the meat arrives at our stall, we treat it on site ourselves using methods including dry aging, pickling and smoking. Our beef hangs for up to four weeks while we dry age it on the bone and our lamb is dry aged for a week. This helps to make our meats tender but also flavourful.

We’re also one of the only Melbourne’s butchers to have a smoking oven on site, which means we can smoke all our own hams and bacon. While doing all this ourselves does take a lot of time (and space!), it is definitely the best way to ensure that the products we supply are of the highest calibre they can be.