Victor and Anthony Puharich come from a long line of butchers, back to Anthony’s great-great-grandfather. Combining Victor’s traditional butchery skills and Anthony’s passion for produce, they’ve created one of Sydney’s best providores: Victor Churchill in Woollahra.
In 1996, Anthony and Victor started supplying some of Sydney’s best restaurants through their wholesale business Vic’s Premium Quality Meat. Then, in 2009, when Sydney’s oldest continuously operating butcher shop became available, Anthony decided it was time to enter the retail market.
Combining it’s original name, Churchills Meat, with a tribute to his father, Anthony created Victor Churchill. In collaboration with designer Michael McCann, he took inspiration from the best international retail design influences to create a shopping experience unlike any other.
Victor Churchill is like an upmarket meat boutique. Anthony Bourdain called it: “The most beautiful butcher shop in the world.” From the bronze sausage-shaped door handles, through the dark wood panelling and marble floor, to the glass fronted dry-ageing room with a wall of Himalayan salt bricks, every detail has been carefully curated.
There’s theatre and luxury from the moment you walk through the door, with beautiful mirror-backed display cabinets, a glass fronted climate-controlled work area where butchers prepare the cuts and a traditional French rotisserie and beautiful bronze and marble charcuterie counter with shiny red Berkel slicer.
But the theatre and luxury are the window dressing, not what makes Victor Churchill one of Sydney’s best providores. That’s down to Anthony’s deep understanding of how the best meat in the world is raised and the partnerships he’s forged over time with Australia’s leading meat producers including Rangers Valley Beef, Kurobata Pork and Burrawong Gaian Poultry.
While Victor Churchill in Woollahra is undoubtedly one of Sydney’s best providores, it’s now joined by Victor Churchill Melbourne and the more casual Vic’s stores in Chatswood, Bondi and Pyrmont, all selling produce from the same quality suppliers with the same eye for detail and commitment to customer service. Visit VictorChurchill.com to learn more.
Anthony Puharich explains how his family came to create one of Sydney’s best providores:
“Dad comes from a long line of butchers, going back to his great-grandfather. His is the classic immigrant story: he arrived in Australia from Croatia in the 1970s as a 17-year-old with nothing but his trade, a great work ethic and the clothes on his back. He married Mum, built up a good business as a suburban butcher and had me and my two siblings. After uni, when I told him I wanted to come into the family business, he was hesitant, wanting “a better life” for me. But I had a plan that could mean a better life for the whole family. Soon dad saw it my way and we established Vic’s Meat as a wholesale business and together we began supplying many of Sydney’s best restaurants. In 2009, Churchill’s in Woollahra, which opened in 1876, was going to close. It’s probably Sydney’s oldest butcher shop – and I couldn’t see that happen. So we bought it and turned it into the most beautiful butcher shop in the world: Victor Churchill. In 2010 it was the first butcher shop to ever be nominated for the International Interior Design Awards – and it won Best of the Year at the awards in New York City. We were blown away!”
