Here is a list of the cuts that our butcher does for us. To buy a box of our beefy beef, see our How to buy beef page. If this post doesn’t answer your questions feel free to email me at bc@grasspunk.com and I’ll see if I can help.
The cuts are labelled in French. The French word below links to the cut on the la-viande site and the English version links to Wikipedia.
Filet – Fillet, tender, juicy, expensive.
Faux-Filet – Sirloin steak with a different name in each English-speaking country (e.g. NY strip in parts of the US). The photo below show a faux-filet, although the hand model is an 8-year-old which messes up the scale a bit.
Entrecôte – Fore rib steak. We’ve made fore rib roasts out of this in the past. My personal favourite steak.
Basses-côtes – Chuck steak although I could be misundersting things in the UK. This is like the fore rib/entrecôte but further forward. Rosbeef – Rump roast, likely Silverside
Rumsteak – Rump steak (in steak form rather than roast form)
Gite/Noix and Rond de Gite – this is a tricky one as it seems the Rond de Gite is part Topside and part Thick Flank, and the Gite à la Noix is Thick Flank. In the USA we just make it easy and call it all Round.
Tende de tranche – more Rump steak
Tranche Grasse – a rump steak but a hard one to track down. See number 8 in these butcher photos. There are six muscles in the Tranche and they have distinct names in French.
Osseline and Onglet – Hanger steak, although we received just one packet of Onglet from this cow and it is sitting in my fridge right now.
Bourgignon – Beef cubes for braising (e.g. for Bourgignon!)
Paleron and Macreuse – Shoulder. Braiseworthy cuts from the shoulder.
Pot au feu – More thick rib/brisket for braising.
Plat de Côte – More thick rib/brisket.
All rich with beefy goodness!
grasspunk.com 
I must say…that fancy red packaging is quite fetching. Very different from the regular old clear plastic vacuum packaging we get with our label slapped on the front.
Vive la France!
Fancy packaging – ours doesn’t have the backing which makes the packs kind of delicate. I went back to wrapping my own meat in butcher paper instead.
Yes, we’ve had problems with ours losing their vacuum seal, too. We’ll have to talk to the butcher next time. And maybe it just needs more delicate handling. My husband loaded our steer and the lamb into the freezer, whereas I had done all the pork. Maybe I babied it more. 🙂
Thank you for this, very interesting!
you are mistaken in a few of your translations. Faux filet=rib eye (boneless rib) , plus the picture shown is not a sirloin but a strip loin. Macreuse is not brisket, that would be “poitrine de boeuf”. Macreuse is from the shoulder. Pot au feu basically means pot roast so should be crossed rib but could be any cut as it is a method not a cut.
Bon appetit!
Hello rsud, good catches there. I’ll mail you because I have a couple of things to clarify re English vs US names (we’re not English). I’ve been selling brisket/pointe de poitrine for a year or so now so should have updated the page.
Ah this is simple enough to put in a comment.
This post was written by going through the cuts I got from a mature heifer about four years ago. You picked up a couple of errors – macreuse is definitely wrong as is brisket as I said above. We never sell macreuse and we get the brisket right but I hadn’t updated this page.
The faux-filet is definitely the rear of the rib cuts and opposite the filet. Faux-filet would be called the NY strip in Seattle (where we’re from). It is the large half of the t-bone/porterhouse. I’ve heard the Brits use sirloin for it.
The entrecote is further forward and would be the rib eye or rib. There are so many variations in English it is hard to keep track, but I wouldn’t call a faux-filet a rib-eye.
Nearly all of my butchered animals are done bone-in so they’re all just “cotes” on the packet whether ribs, t-bones or porterhouses.
The photo you refer to is of a faux-filet which is a NY strip (or similar name) in the US or a sirloin in the UK. I put a link to the NY strip in the description. Since most of my anglophone customers use British names I defaulted to that in this post.
HI there
You still have some errors in your translation of hindquarter muscles
Gite noix= eye round (eye from the silverside)
La Tranche grasse= thickflank
La Semelle = the whole silverside
Le Plat de gite =silverside flat
Le Rumsteack= Rump
La Tende de tranche = topside
Macreuse = shoulder clod
Gros bout de poitrine = brisket
Onglet – also known as “thin skirt”
Entrecote = forerib
Noix d’entrecote= rib eye
Faux fiet= striplion
Filet = fillet
basse cote = chuck
Jumeau= Jewish fillet or chuck tender
Jarret= shin
Hope this helps. I used to import and export to France, and these were the wholesale names, however as you noted some cuts have many names.
good luck
J.E.T.
Hi – I think you missed shin beef – otherwise known as gravy beef. Ideal in a stew cooked for 3..4 hours to allow all the connective tissue to dissolve.
also Back rib – tends to be fatty and needs cooking for a long time. Serves flaky and tender – good taste.
Hi this is super helpful. I just read an article about smoking beef clod and needed to know what to order in France. I have been smoking imported (from the US) briskets and it would be great to find a cheaper beef option. Do you know of any good brisket cuts in France or Europe? Race of cow & what to order that doesn’t result in wasting a ton in trimming? Thanks!
Hello Jessie, for brisket you can try a pointe de poitrine. At least that’s what I get my butcher to do but we’re not big bbqers. One other potential issue is that beef here is usually from older cows and less tender, 4-10y in the butcher or sometimes older in the supermarkets. Should be fine for bbq though I am not a bbq expert.
Hi does anyone know what short rib or oxtail would be in France? I tried plat côtes last time for short rib and it was a similar part, very fatty but once I’d slow cooked it for 6 hours it was very tender like I was going for. But I’d like the bone in short ribs that have a lot of meat on them for a recipe I want to try. They’re quite popular in restaurants in the UK.
Hello Laura, I don’t know if I can help you much. We have requested plat de côtes in the past but rarely sell it so I don’t know the ins and outs of the cut. .