Nemanja Borjanović likes to be first. In his line of work, the beef business, that can take time. But when two Galician blond calves were born at his farm this past June, he succeeded: it was the first significant new breed to be born on British soil since Wagyu, 15 years ago.
It will be at least another five years before the calves – imported from the north of Spain as fertilised embryos, tested, implanted into female cattle, and then delivered by Caesarean – can be eaten. Yet for Borjanović the long game is part of the project. “Starting a new herd from zero takes an eternity,” he says.
“From these two to a point where we can commercialise it, serve it, is potentially 10 to 15 years.” If this sounds like a lot of trouble to go to, the end result offers some explanation. Galician beef is white-hot among cult chefs and specialist butchers, riding a renaissance in Basque-style cooking at the hands of chefs like Tomos Parry, who pays tribute to the fire-licked flavours of the Spanish region at his hugely successful London restaurants, Brat and Mountain.
Borjanović, through his company Txuleta, has supplied both, as well as sourcing Galician blond beef from Spain for high-end restaurants such as Chiltern Firehouse, Straker’s and Goodman. At The Devonshire in Soho , the Guinness-slinging pub with a long list of steaks on the menu and a significantly longer waiting list to get in, Txuleta’s gargantuan aged fore ribs of British beef are popular table centrepie.