Offal Truths: Why the Ugly Bits Matter

By someone who still gives a damn

I like steak as much as any red-blooded carnivore, but fillet and sirloin? They bore me, they're the edible equivalent of training wheels. I rarely order them in restaurants. Not because they’re bad — they're great pieces of meat, they’re just too easy. Too safe. They show up, do their job and leave. There’s little craft involved, and they’re usually overpriced to hell. Truthfully, I can cook a better one at home for half the cost and twice the satisfaction.

I don’t want to go to restaurants for “safe.” I go for craft. I want to see the sweat behind the plate. What interests me is not just flavour, but intention. I want to taste the hours, the thought, the hands that brought the dish to life. Give me oxtail cooked down in beef stock - gelatinous and sticky, the meat barely holding onto the bone, veal shank done ossobuco-style with a golden saffron risotto, calves liver grilled until just pink with buttery mash or brisket slow-cooked to surrender, served on good bread with nothing but salt, mustard, and care.

These are cuts that demand patience and understanding. I want food that takes time. Food that asks something of the cook — and the diner, too.

So when a menu offers offal, I take the leap. Not just for novelty, or because it’s cool or weird. No, it’s a quiet rebellion and middle finger against everything safe, sterile, and engineered-for-likes in the food world. It signals a chef unafraid of tradition, of challenge, of the parts most diners ignore. Offal means the chef isn’t phoning it in. There’s something honest in that — in finding beauty not in the prime, but in what it takes to make the overlooked unforgettable. It means they give a shit.

As a child, my mother would, without fail, cook liver and bacon once a week. I wish I could say these were the kind of moments one looks back on with a faraway, dreamy smile — the kindly mother, setting down a plate prepared with love, a soft glow in the kitchen, some faint music playing. But it wasn’t like that.

What landed in front of me was liver—dense, grey-brown slabs wrapped in bacon and slow-roasted into submission. Cooked for so long it could’ve been repurposed as riot control ammunition. And just in case there remained a trace of life in that unfortunate piece of protein, it was drowned — mercilessly — in Bisto gravy, like a final rite to ensure the death was complete, not done out of malice but out of habit. As if gravy could redeem anything

There was no sentiment in it. No performance of tenderness. Just sustenance, routine, and maybe a faint belief that this was what good mothers did: serve liver once a week, whether or not anyone liked it.

But in its own way, it was a kind of love. Not the cinematic kind, but the stubborn, overcooked, gravy-soaked kind — the kind that shows up whether you ask for it or not.

What off the diners

Most diners are too lazy, or perhaps too squeamish, to even chew their way through a more challenging cut of meat, let alone consider a dish made from liver, heart, or tripe. But across the world, people have long understood the value — and the poetry — of the so-called "lesser" cuts, they are the heart of the dish both literally and figuratively.

Tripe in Vietnamese pho, grilled heart in Peruvian anticuchos, intestines simmered into soulful Southern chitterlings — each culture brings its own reverence, technique, and storytelling to what others throw away. These aren't just scraps, they are sweat, and culture in edible form. They’re centrepieces, memory carriers, love letters and history written in broth and fire.

The modern palate often demands ease: soft textures, familiar flavours, and nothing that might ask a question of the diner’s courage or curiosity. I’ve seen grown men and women flinch at a grilled sweetbread like it just insulted their mother. But those people? They’re missing the point.

The Restaurantuer

The savvy restaurant owner knows this. They scan the trends, run the numbers, and give the audience what they want — chicken supreme, skinless salmon fillet, and yet another wagyu burger stacked with more bacon and enough truffle mayo to suffocate a young calf. Its just a gimmick!

I’ve spoken to these lazy operators, hell, I’ve worked for and walked away from these lazy bastards and heard them boast about how “busy” they are, how “everyone loves the food,” and how they’ve “cracked the formula.” We did 200 covers last night!” they say, like it means something.

It doesn’t.

Volume isn’t pride. It’s noise. If your restaurant could be copy-pasted into any city in the world and no one would notice, you’re not a chef. You’re a spreadsheet with a griddle or fryer attached.

You won’t win by out-McDonalding McDonald's.

Eating in one of those joints, surrounded by grey interiors, Spotify playlists, and the smell of reheated ambition. You can’t help but wonder: Is there even a god? Because if this is the height of hospitality, then someone upstairs has truly abandoned us.

Let's be honest: that approach is plain lazy. It’s cowardice disguised as strategy.

Sure, it works. It keeps the lights on. It fills tables. But at what cost? Where’s the story? Where’s the risk? Where’s the love? Cooking, real cooking, isn’t supposed to be about surrendering to the lowest common denominator. It’s meant to provoke, to excite, to make someone pause mid-bite and feel something. If the only aim is to move units and keep online reviews neutral, then we’ve lost the thread entirely.

The Chains

You can’t out-compete the chain joints with their customer service SOPs and things-to-say-to-a-customer-to-upsell-them guidelines, so why do you even bother when the reverse, whilst harder, often delivers a much more rewarding and profitable outcome?

Chains have already won that game. They’ve built their empires on standardisation, spreadsheets, and soulless predictability. They don’t need chefs — they need systems. The customer isn't there for discovery or delight; they're there for safety. To order the same thing they had last week, reheated to the same temperature, with the same garnish placed at the same 2 o’clock angle on the plate. It's dining by numbers, food as product, experience as brand.

Chains don’t sell dinner, they sell predictability and the terrifying thing is it works.

So again — why would an independent operator try to play that game? You’ll always lose. They have economies of scale, marketing departments, legal firepower, and a supply chain so optimised it could feed an army or starve a country. Your strength is not in replication — it's in rebellion.

But too many independents don’t see this. Instead, they fold into the safe zone. Menu designed by a focus group: chicken, salmon, burger, mushroom risotto — the holy quadrinity of not-scaring-anyone. A couple of sides. A dessert you can buy in frozen. Job done.

And the real tragedy? Some of them think they’re doing it well. They speak with pride about how “busy” they are, about “how many covers we did last night” — but it’s empty success. It’s noise. There’s no heartbeat in the room. You sit in one of those places and feel like you could be anywhere — a gastro-bland zone with recycled wood, Ikea light bulbs, and Instagram bait that tastes of wallpaper paste.

Change Minds

I get it. Offal can be awful. Most people won’t gnaw on a lamb’s neck or even consider a piece of meat unless it melts in your mouth like mousse. I understand the temptation to just serve what sells and offer no other distraction on the menu — to cater to what’s familiar. But at some point, doesn’t the soul of the thing matter? Isn’t this supposed to be hospitality, not just heat-and-serve logistics?

When did we become so afraid to make people chew?

There’s something deeply broken in a food culture where a perfectly grilled steak with a bit of chew is deemed too challenging, but ultra-processed, lab-grown nuggets are fine — because they’re easy. But food isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be honest. And honesty, like a good piece of brisket, takes time, attention, and a bit of resistance.

Yes, doing it differently is harder. Giving someone a plate of food they don’t recognise — and then making them love it — takes guts. It requires storytelling, confidence, care. It requires not just feeding people, but waking them up.

But that’s the whole point. That’s where the magic lives.

But here’s the thing: you can’t win their game, you won’t win by copying McDonald's. They’ve got the supply chains, the marketing teams, the franchised efficiency.

But you can win by being so deeply, unshakable no chain can touch it. Serve the dish that only your kitchen can do. Too many give up. They fold. Design their menus like everyone else. Chicken, burger, risotto, brownie. Safe, predictable. Nothing that tells a story. Nothing that bleeds.

So cook like it matters. Don’t be afraid to chew. Serve something challenging. Something honest. If it’s heart, liver, kidney — make it sing. Tell a story with it. Wake people up. Don’t feed them —move them.

Tell the story no app menu ever could. Build the room that feels like someone cares you came in. That’s your superpower. Not convenience. Not price point. Not portion size. Passion.

That’s what people will remember.

You won’t beat the chains at their game.

You beat them by being so damn real they can't touch you.

So when the lights go out, the app crashes, the fridge fails — and you’re left with nothing but a gas burner and a battered pot — you’ll still be in business.

Because you were never running a business.

You were feeding people.