Simone Fracassi

Among the champions of the world of Italian butchery, known for their proverbial fondness for and expertise in the dressing of meat, we find Simone Fracassi: a member of the most recent of four generations of butchers who have been promoting and developing breeds, or rather the heritage of the Italian culture of meat-eating, at Rassina di Castel Focognano in the Arezzo region since 1927.

Gastronomy and Wine Butchery

Fracassi’s passion for meat is full-blooded, visceral. Eschewing compromise, he is straightforward in his artisanal approach: putting quality before profit and devoting his energies to the revival and promotion of now forgotten breeds. In Simone Fracassi the only apparent surgical coldness of the butcher verges on a graceful rituality, even when surrounded by powerful haunches of Casentino grey pork or massive sides of Chianina beef. In his work, Fracassi adopts precise rules that his customers do not always grasp. He is not afraid to say no when it comes to opposing the commercialization of a rural culture to which he is the fortunate heir.

Over the years his passion, courage and work ethic have earned him various marks of recognition, such as the Golosaria Award for the Best Butcher’s Shop in Italy in 2016 and, the same year, five horse-bone needles in L’Espresso’s Guida ai Salumi d’Italia. Simone Fracassi is not just a skilled butcher, he is a fundamentalist of meat, but one who defends his trade stoutly, preserving the historic value that this Master of Arts and Crafts cherishes so dearly. 

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