I’m completely smitten with the butcher shop downstairs from my apartment. ❤️

The owner is a man of few words—though, inexplicably, he has impeccable skin—who spends his days in an immaculate white apron, stationed behind the counter with the kind of focus most people reserve for meditation. The entire shop radiates his fastidious nature: spotless, bright, orderly. Everything has its place.

The Art of Old-School Butchery

Through the pristine windows, you’ll find what a traditional Italian butcher still believes in: guancia (pork jowl), trotters, offal most people have forgotten how to cook, beef heart and liver, pork kidney, pork caul wrapped around liver, lamb brain. The kind of cuts that require a phone call home to your grandmother because, honestly, who knows what to do with them anymore?

There’s a Taiwanese saying: “有一老如有一寶”—roughly, “having an elder is like having treasure.” And it’s true. The older generation knows how to cook these things. Growing up, you learn that nothing goes to waste, that every part of an animal tells a story on the plate.

The Rhythm of Silent Understanding

Here’s the thing about this owner: he moves with the pace of the sloth from Zootopia. While he’s cutting for one customer, his staff could serve three others. It’s genuinely that slow.

But I specifically ask for him to cut my meat.

Before each cut, he glances up. I give him a thumbs-up. He nods. Then it happens—whether it’s a three-finger-thick steak, beef shank for risotto, lamb ribs cleaned down to the bone, a massive pork skin (no tears allowed—it’s going on Instagram), or beef tendon for 牛肉麵 (beef noodle soup). In all these months, every strange request, every oddball specification—he’s nailed it every single time. ❤️

Sometimes I swear I have better chemistry with this butcher than with my own partner. 🤣

When a Quiet Man Shows You Care

There’s something deeply Italian about this—the absence of flash, the presence of competence, the unspoken pact between maker and customer. He doesn’t need to chat. He doesn’t perform. He just knows exactly what you need, and he delivers it with the kind of precision that makes you feel understood.

That’s the Napoli I’ve fallen for.