All About Us

We opened the doors of Belmont Butchery on October 19, 2006. Called a culinary clearinghouse by Style Weekly and with an acclaimed charcuterie program, Belmont Butchery offers artisanal hand-cut meats, house-cured sausages and prepared foods from a European-style storefront in the Museum District of Richmond, Virginia.

Featured in Food & Wine magazine, Richmond Magazine, Style Weekly, Saveur and a winner of the 2008 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Muse Award, the skilled and enthusiastic staff of Belmont Butchery work to bring our skill, passion and love of food to your kitchen.

Our operation has grown steadily since 2006, with each year seeing new products, a larger customer base and more fun! We're delighted to be helping the Richmond community, and thank you for your support of a local business.

Tanya Cauthen

Swiss-trained chef Tanya Cauthen encountered a culinary paradox: Richmond chefs could find excellent cuts of meat, but Richmond consumers lacked options. The idea of bringing restaurant-grade meats to the consumer market was born in the spring of 2006, and the idea became Belmont Butchery.

Cauthen moved to Richmond in 1993 to work with Jimmy Snead at the acclaimed The Frog and The Redneck restaurant in Shockoe Slip. At 24, she opened The Red Oak Cafe as executive chef. Never afraid of a challenge, chef Cauthen opened Capers Catering as chef-partner. Her experience has not been limited to restaurants, having worked as chef of Ellwood Thompson's Local Market, and the European Market. Cauthen opened Edible Garden in 2005 as Chef de Cuisine.

Cauthen's international experience includes a chef's apprenticeship in Bern, Switzerland, where she first tried her hand at butchery, as well as a stint at Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market in Australia. Always hoping to inspire good cooking, she ran the Virginia Gourmet cooking school, and has covered food and wine as a writer for a well known regional publication.

Chef Cauthen's free time is taken up wishing she had free time! She is currently planning her wedding and honeymoon; teaching a 16 year old how to drive a stick shift; and planting veggies in the Ghetto Garden behind the butcher shop.

Chris Mattera

Chef Charcutier of what Food & Wine magazine said "may be one of the best" charcuterie programs in the country, Chris Mattera has been with Belmont Butchery since the beginning. Chris' first foray into sausage making was at the age of 12, after receiving a meat grinder from his grandparents as a birthday gift. After graduating from Virginia Tech and training at Le Cordon Bleu Paris, Mattera returned to Richmond. Lured by the opportunity to make sausage for a living, he left his position as Sous Chef of a local restaurant for the Butcher's life. Chris oversees day to day production and is a staunch proponent of heritage breed and local meat.

Mattera's dedication to culinary excellence includes an extended stay in an Italian convent, working at Macelleria Sergio Falaschi in San Miniato, Tuscany learning to cut and cure meats in the age-old Italian tradition. He returned from Italy with a more refined set of skills and new inspiration to capture the spirit of traditional charcuterie in his work at Belmont Butchery.

Chris' professional interests include food policy and culinary anthropology. On a personal note, Chris has been described as "a 70-year-old Italian man trapped in a 27-year-old body." He takes that as a compliment. He is currently trying to convince his wife to let him raise a pig in the backyard of their 112-year-old row house.

Nathan Conway

Nathan is the youngest of the butchers at Belmont Butchery, but he is also the longest standing employee - beating Chris by one week. Despite his youth, Nathan has many skills. From cutting meat and sausage making to amateur carpentry and interior design, if there is an odd job at the shop, Nathan's the one to do it. About to graduate from VCU with a degree in Biology, he has more than just a culinary interest in the animals we butcher. He hopes to soon embark on a career combining his interests in ecology and sustainable agriculture with his experience in traditional butchery.

Alex Import

Alex started out his relationship with Belmont Butchery as a customer. By the end of the summer of 2008, we needed a cashier and Alex fit the bill. A former professional Jazz musician, Alex is currently a French major at VCU. When he is not parlez-vous français, he is playing the drums: working on the garden at his new house; and researching charcuterie. Since Alex joined the crew here, he has worked his way up from cashier to apprentice Charcutier. An avid cook, he is always full of great ideas for meal-time solutions.

Brad Hemp

Though Brad may be a law school slave on paper, in reality he has over 10 years of experience selling fine cheeses at establishments in Virginia and Florida. In addition he has designed or rehabilitated the wine selections at five different locations and run an artisan French bakery. While in Florida, Brad studied graduate-level analytical philosophy at University of Florida, but has yet to finish his master's thesis reconciling the epistemic gap between Roquefort and Cabrales. When not consumed by legal studies or the arcania of cheese and wine, Brad manages a couple of blogs, road bikes, and mutters to himself about touching the face of god in a glass of particularly fine nebbiolo.

Matt Mahoney

Matt wandered in one day last summer (2009) and said, "I want to learn stuff. Will you teach me?" Impressed by his ability to actually clean a Hanger Steak, despite himself, we decided to teach him 'stuff'. Working in kitchens over the past 5 years he got his start out at the Snowshoe Resort in West Virginia, where he spent his days snowboarding and his nights cooking. Since Matt has been with Belmont Butchery, he has also worked at Six Burner, and currently can be found a few nights a week at Black Sheep. When Matt's not working, he enjoys going to shows, riding bikes around town and playing the guitar, bass and more recently the drums.