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Join today<\/a><\/p>\n \n Already a member? Restaurants have decided that internal organs<\/a> are sexy again.<\/p>\n At London\u2019s Impala, sweetbreads come with salted onions and pickled green chillies. Elsewhere in the capital<\/a>, Tavern\u2019s got a crispy veal sweetbread burger on the menu and The Golden Tooth offers fried ox tongue and veal sweetbread saltimbocca. There\u2019s sweetbread saganaki at Zylia; calves\u2019 brains, snout and lamb sweetbreads at Camille; and kidneys and ears at Legado. <\/p>\n And at Kismet, one of Borough<\/a>\u2019s buzziest new openings, chef Keiran Mustafa serves yaprak ci\u0121er \u2013 calf\u2019s liver, fried until lightly crisp and eaten with parsley, onion and lemon. It\u2019s become one of their bestselling dishes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of tables order a second plate immediately,\u201d Mustafa tells me. \u201cI was definitely surprised by how well it sold.\u201d<\/p>\n This is quite the rehabilitation for a category of food<\/a> that, for a significant portion of the population, inspires memories of grey school dinner liver, minerally aromas \u2013 and the uncomfortable knowledge that the thing on your plate once handled a fairly important job in another animal. <\/p>\n Offal has always had an image problem. Liver can be metallic, kidneys have a distinctive tang, tripe looks like a bath mat, and sweetbreads are neither sweet nor bread but the thymus or pancreas of a calf or lamb. The hesitations about brains require little explanation. <\/p>\n Mustafa suspects much of liver\u2019s stigma is culinary rather than anatomical. \u201cI think liver\u2019s divisive reputation generally comes from a traumatic experience of eating seriously overcooked liver, which is something I equally dislike,\u201d he says. \u201cBut when it\u2019s cooked well, it\u2019s one of my favourite things to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain<\/a> once needed considerably less persuasion. Offal was cheap, readily available and closely tied to a way of eating in which relatively little of a slaughtered animal went to waste. Liver and onions, steak and kidney pie, tripe, faggots and tongue belonged to an everyday repertoire built partly around economy. <\/p>\n During the postwar years, as incomes rose<\/a> and meat became more affordable, shoppers increasingly chose the cuts that had previously carried greater status. Liver and kidneys went from economical staples to things you remembered your grandparents eating. And what was once associated with thrift and necessity has since acquired a peculiar sort of luxury status.<\/p>\n The great modern turning point was St John<\/a>. When Fergus Henderson opened the Smithfield<\/a> restaurant in 1994, his nose-to-tail philosophy placed marrow, heart, tongue, kidneys and trotters back on serious restaurant tables. None was disguised as something more respectable. The unfashionableness was part of the appeal. <\/p>\n Thirty years later, Henderson\u2019s argument has become so thoroughly absorbed by restaurants that chefs barely need make it any more. A sweetbread burger can simply be something good to order \u2013 along with a growing reputation as a superfood because it is so nutrient-dense.<\/p>\n Curiously, restaurant enthusiasm has arrived while ordinary household consumption remains tiny. Yes, sure, Waitrose<\/a> reported that sales of lamb hearts are up 91 per cent, lamb\u2019s liver 33 per cent and lamb kidneys 25 per cent. Searches for lamb liver on its website are up 54 per cent. <\/p>\n But look beyond middle-class shoppers and the comeback is much more tentative. Analysis by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) analysis found that only 11 per cent of British households bought offal in 2024\/25. Although spending rose slightly, actual sales fell 7.9 per cent, and three-quarters of sales came from over-55s.<\/p>\n Offal, in other words, has become fashionable before it has returned to the mainstream. <\/p>\n Which raises another question. Restaurants might have managed to make one of our biggest \u201cick\u201d foods desirable again, but is it actually as good for us as its growing health halo suggests? <\/p>\n Bad news for anyone hoping to dismiss this as another superfood fad: some offal really is extraordinarily nutritious.<\/p>\n \u201cOffal is one of those foods that can divide opinion but it does offer an interesting nutritional profile,\u201d says nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert. Generally, she says, offal provides high-quality protein alongside a clutch of useful micronutrients. Liver is the star. \u201cLiver is particularly rich in vitamin B12, vitamin A, iron, folate, copper and choline, while kidneys can provide vitamin B12, selenium and iron.\u201d<\/p>\n An 85g serving of cooked beef liver can contain around 70 micrograms of vitamin B12. UK<\/a> adults need roughly 1.5 micrograms a day. The same portion can contain more than 6,500 micrograms of vitamin A, surpassing guidelines for 600 micrograms a day for women and 700 micrograms for men.<\/p>\n I think liver\u2019s divisive reputation generally comes from a traumatic experience of eating seriously overcooked liver … When it\u2019s cooked well, it\u2019s one of my favourite things to eat<\/p>\n Keiran Mustafa, chef at Kismet<\/p>\n Its iron, folate, copper and choline are involved in everything from red blood cell formation to nervous system function, and some of those nutrients come in forms our bodies find particularly easy to use. \u201cOne of the key benefits is its haem iron, which is generally more readily absorbed than the non-haem iron found in plant foods,\u201d Lambert says. <\/p>\n That has some relevance in Britain, where iron intake is a particular concern<\/a> among younger women and teenage girls. That doesn\u2019t mean suspected iron deficiency is best treated by prescribing yourself liver and bacon \u2013 it needs proper diagnosis \u2013 but it helps explain why liver has acquired such an outsized nutritional reputation.<\/p>\n The catch is contained within the selling point. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is particularly important to be mindful of portion size and frequency when it comes to liver,\u201d Lambert says. \u201cLiver is such a concentrated source of preformed vitamin A, or retinol, that the NHS<\/a> advises against eating liver or liver products more than once a week.\u201d<\/p>\n Liver should also be avoided during pregnancy, she adds, because excessive vitamin A may be harmful to a developing baby. And anyone eating it regularly should watch supplements containing vitamin A, including some multivitamins and fish liver oils. <\/p>\n The most nutritionally impressive offal is, therefore, also the one with the clearest instructions not to get carried away. <\/p>\n Kidney is slightly less showy but still formidable. Beef and calf kidneys are particularly rich in B12 and can provide significant amounts of selenium, iron, copper and zinc. Heart is different again. Anatomically an organ, it is also a hard-working muscle and nutritionally behaves rather more like the meat most of us already eat: high in protein, with useful amounts of iron and B12, but without liver\u2019s extraordinary vitamin A load. <\/p>\n If you\u2019re curious about offal but are put off by liver\u2019s softness or kidney\u2019s particular flavour, heart may be the less confrontational route in. <\/p>\n Things become murkier as you move around the animal. Sweetbreads are protein-rich but do not have liver\u2019s spectacular micronutrient profile. Tripe provides protein and some B vitamins but is considerably less nutritionally concentrated. Tongue can be relatively fatty. Nutritionally, then, \u201coffal\u201d is about as useful a category as \u201cvegetables\u201d. Knowing that something came from inside the animal tells you surprisingly little about what it provides.<\/p>\n There are other caveats. \u201cSome types of offal are naturally high in purines, which the body breaks down into uric acid,\u201d Lambert says. \u201cPeople living with gout or those who have been advised to follow a diet lower in purines may therefore need to limit or avoid offal.\u201d<\/p>\n Nor does a plate of liver solve every nutritional problem simply because its vitamin count is impressive. \u201cLike other meats, offal does not provide fibre,\u201d Lambert says. \u201cProtein deficiency is not considered a population-level concern in the UK, whereas fibre intake remains consistently low.\u201d<\/p>\n There is also something distinctly British about treating offal\u2019s return as an adventurous dish. For Avinash Shashidhara, who is putting calf\u2019s liver with mushroom and pepper fry on the menu at the forthcoming Talli Queen in Shepherd\u2019s Bush, eating the whole animal is hardly a new culinary philosophy. <\/p>\n \u201cWe use a lot of offal in our cooking in India<\/a>,\u201d he tells me. \u201cTraditionally, the whole animal is consumed. You have things like goat\u2019s brains, calf\u2019s liver, chicken livers, tripe \u2013 pretty much every organ gets cooked and eaten in some way.\u201d <\/p>\n In Mumbai<\/a>, kaleji fry \u2013 spiced fried liver \u2013 is a popular dish. Shashidhara remembers offal dishes in military canteens in Bangalore<\/a> and restaurants in Kerala<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t think we see enough of it on Indian restaurant menus here,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n Perhaps restaurants can succeed where generations of liver and onions failed because they are not asking diners to eat offal dutifully. They are making it taste good. <\/p>\n Shashidhara cooks liver quickly and aggressively with chilli, black pepper, cumin, ginger and garlic. \u201cYou\u2019re not trying to hide the flavour of the liver, you\u2019re complementing it,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n There is a sustainability argument here too. Britain currently exports substantial quantities of offal for which there is little domestic appetite, meaning edible parts of animals raised here may find a market overseas even as British shoppers largely ignore them. <\/p>\n \u201cFor people who choose to eat meat, eating a wider range of cuts can make fuller use of the resources involved in producing it,\u201d Lambert says. <\/p>\n
\n Log in<\/a>\n <\/p>\n![\"Tavern\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026_June_Tavern_Film-20.jpg\")
Tavern\u2019s crispy veal sweetbread burger (Tavern)<\/p>\n![\"Once](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/iStock-1315062108.jpeg\")
Once a cheap household staple, liver has gone from school-dinner exile to one of the most fashionable ingredients on restaurant menus (Getty\/iStock)<\/p>\n![\"Kismet\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/PXL_20260721_184506537-MP.jpg\")
Kismet\u2019s offal offering \u2013 \u2018lightly crispy and eaten with parsley, onion and lemon\u2019 (Supplied)<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/iStock-1978071034.jpeg\")
In India, kaleji fry turns liver into a deeply spiced dish with chilli, ginger, garlic and warming spices (Getty)<\/p>\n