What He Made With What Was Left

Mark Gevaux looks like he has a story. One leg, one lazy eye, the general bearing of someone who has been through something significant and come out the other side with strong opinions about meat. You wouldn’t trust him with your keys, but you’d follow him to a food stall without much persuasion.

He’s known across London as The Rib Man, a title he earned rather than chose. Before the accident that took his leg, he was a butcher—and when that was no longer possible, he didn’t move toward something safe. He found a way to stay close to the thing he knew. Now he sets up on street corners with his family and friends, selling pork ribs from a stall that’s built something close to a cult following among people who take this kind of thing seriously.

By all accounts the ribs are the kind of thing that makes you quietly resent every other rib you’ve eaten. Slow-cooked, sauced with intention, served in a roll that barely contains them. Next time I’m in London I’ll find him. I want to eat those ribs standing on a pavement somewhere and taste what it looks like when obsession gets rendered down to its best possible form.