Having done a LOT of business traveling over the years, my husband and I had a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve with our breakfasts. We were also clear that “local suppliers” has become a mandatory term on most menus and in many places has lost any special meaning.
We were determined to put an excellent breakfast on the table and to achieve this we would only use local suppliers if they met our standards.
We were in for a bit of a surprise. Shipston has two excellent butchers, a greengrocer, a baker and a deli amongst the many other independent shops.
Our fear of ”local suppliers” just being a marketing phrase was totally unfounded. The Cotswolds are a foodie heaven with excellent suppliers constantly improving and experimenting.
For our breakfasts, we tried many, many sausage and bacon suppliers and always came back to Taylors Butchers in Shipston.
Darren Taylor, owner of Taylors of Shipston The Butcher
Darren Taylor the owner has created something really special at Taylors. The constant quality is really refreshing.
He supplies us with several different sausages of which our favourite is the pork and leek. He has also made a vegetarian sausage especially for us which we have had rave reviews on from both guests and friends.
Darren knows his meat and he recently gave me a great tip for brine cured bacon. If you leave the bacon uncovered in the fridge overnight you will not get the white residue when cooking it
Funnily enough, our choice of sausage and bacon was totally validated by one of our first guests who is a commercial meat buyer. He said that the bacon and sausage was amongst the best he had tasted!! What a lovely endorsement from a knowledgeable person.
Apart from that endorsement we have Charlie the B&B dog who also wholeheartedly approves. His main complaint however is that there are never any leftovers for him to “resolve”.
