The tradition of good meat of the Motta family: from breeding to butchers, to restaurants
"My butchery has been the neighborhood amphitheater for years, especially for children."
This is how Sergio Motta begins when I ask him to tell me about his butchery, one of the Italian ones of the past, one of those that are less and less, opened by his father Giuseppe years ago, exactly where he is still today: in a small street by Bellinzago Lombardo.
It all started by chance, from a bottle of wine in Piedmont
Initially, Giuseppe raised a dozen Brune Alpine in his farmhouse in Inzago. Then, over time, he decided to start buying them, so he went to some French Limousine farms. But in a short time, too many Inzaghesi followed in his footsteps, so he chose by his nature to go against the current. It all happened by chance, when he went to buy wine in Piedmont and returned with some veal on the truck: "I could not leave them there!". From that moment on, the Giuseppe Motta butcher shop, as it was called at the time, has never stopped buying the best Fassone from Piedmont (it lives), about fifty a week, together with other animals such as always Lombard pigs and chickens, and proceed to slaughter. What has changed over time? "More or less nothing."
The transition to his son Sergio
Macelleria Motta is undoubtedly a landmark not only of the neighborhood, but of the whole area: they really come from everywhere for the classic shopping steak, chicken breast and hamburger. In the nineties Giuseppe sold the business to his son Sergio, also changing the name of the butcher shop. "I grew up in the midst of meat, my bedroom door was next to a cell." So Sergio never had doubts that he would continue his father's profession: "I was looking forward to finishing school to work with him". And so the brother who graduated in veterinary medicine, while the sister in medicine. Over the years, as mentioned above, there have been no major changes, if not the purchase of more old and heavy oxen, such as the Carrù fat ox, and the increase in very long aging times, among the main features of their flesh. And the October 10, 2000 have inaugurated the new butcher shop. "My father is 85 today, but he's always here."
The opening of the Motta Macelleria Restaurant
Exactly ten years later, the October 10, 2010, Sergio opened the Macelleria Motta restaurant, not without some hesitation from Giuseppe. She remembers that it didn't take long to disappear, given that already the first evening people had to be sent away because of the strong turnout. «Since childhood I dreamed of my meat on the highway. The restaurant, in fact, is located right on the road, in what has been a (fish) restaurant since 1850; before that there were stables for changing horses, as can still be seen in part from the structure. The need for this opening arises not only to complete the chain of its meat from the live animal to the table, but also as a response to the times. «People are cooking less and less, there are no longer the grandmothers and mothers of the past, so we understood that there was a need for a place to find the long Lombard cooking of the past, such as braised classic or real fry offal . But the Motta restaurant is above all the kingdom of grilled meat (only with olive wood from Ostuni): Florentine steak, tenderloin or even that very tender ox steak (obviously from Piedmont), aged for a long time, almost 40 days. Then there is the cutting board with salami, lard, coppa and their bresaola, which they call beef ham, made with all the muscles that make it much tastier (and tastier). But the customers' favorite dish is the ox tartare with three flavors, served on three floors, although some come only for liver and kidney. And Monday, as usual, boiled meat cart.
So why should we choose the Motta meat? Because we have the certainty of a product chosen with love by the best farms in Piedmont, which arrives directly in the butcher shop and which continues the entire process of selection, processing and aging in the hands of those who have done it and have known how to do it for years. But will the new Motta generations also continue? «I have two sons, 11 and 13 years old, I don't force them to do my job. But they will do the butchers! .
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