Tanya Cauthen is the founder and owner of Belmont Butchery, a local butcher shop in Richmond. A former aerospace engineering student (UVA) turned culinarian, Tanya honed her craft through an apprenticeship in Bern, Switzerland. As she cooked and learned and expanded her repertoire, she also freelanced as a food writer. In 2004, looking for further inspiration, she spent six months on “walkabout” in Australia, even spending time as an intern in a Queen Victoria Market butcher shop in Melbourne.
Since launching Belmont Butchery in 2006, she has been a champion of sustainable, “nose-to-tail” eating. Her craft and innovative approach have earned her national acclaim, including being named one of Food & Wine magazine’s “Maverick Butchers” in 2007 and winning the Food Network’s hit show CHOPPED in 2017. Today, Tanya continues to share her butchery and culinary expertise through professional agricultural conferences and hands-on breakdown classes at her shop. In between cuts and classes, she and her husband, Henry retire to Montpelier’s Reidy’s Farm Pond to tend to their herd of Boer goats, Hog Island sheep, their flocks of guinea hens, chickens and geese, and more recent addition of Mena, their 3rd Anatolian shepherd.
