Sealed, numbered and signed by the hand that made it.
THE BUTCHER
Back fat cured under herbs in a marble conca for nine months. Sliced to translucency.
$49
Lardo di Colonnata comes from a quarry village above Carrara, where the men who cut marble for Michelangelo ate cured fat for breakfast because it was the only food dense enough to carry them through a shift. They cured it in basins carved from the marble waste — the conca — because the stone stays cold and holds humidity.
The Romans issued lardo as a ration to the legions. When the EU tried to ban the marble basins on hygiene grounds in the 1990s, the village fought and won: the method received protected status in 2004 precisely because the stone is the technique.
Lardo's fine-dining rehabilitation belongs to Mario Batali, who put it on the menu at Babbo when American diners still recoiled from pure fat, and to Chris Cosentino at Incanto. In Italy it is a fixture from Osteria Francescana's snack course to every Tuscan enoteca.
We use no weights and no press. Pressed fat goes waxy; left alone under salt in a cold room, it stays creamy and slices clean.
Nine months is where the herbs stop sitting on the surface and start reading as part of the fat. At four months it tastes of rosemary; at nine it tastes of lardo.
Marble-vessel salt cure
9 months
Draped over hot bread or a hot potato so it melts before it reaches you.
Every defining ingredient, named: who grew or caught it, where, when it was taken, what it has meant to the people who kept it, and what it does for you.
Slaughter December 2025, cured six months
Rosemary cut winter 2025
Nutrition figures are typical values for the ingredient itself and are given as a guide, not as a dietary claim. Harvest dates refer to the batch printed on your lid.
