Eagerly, Sean Cousins says, "I haven't had a real knife in my hands for a couple of weeks." But it's okay, he's a chef. Not only at restaurants Ocean 6 Seventeen and the recently launched So.Cial at Le Magasin (332 Water Street). He's also the driving force behind So.Cial Custom Butchers Shop and Deli, which should be open by the end of the month. The charcuterie he'll sell there aren't like instant noodles you can make in five minutes. It takes time for salt and air to interact with raw meat, which is why Cousins is already into the first act, about to take apart the pig–about 36 kilos, six months old, Langley origins–that reposes on So.Cial's kitchen counter.

Cousins learned his skills at the Dorchester in London, saw a little in Ireland, and, back in Vancouver, cut up lambs during his time at Raincity Grill. Butchery is an endangered art. "Lots of butchers use band saws," he says, "I do mine by knife." He eyes the animal. "I know I need the legs to make prosciutto. You won't be able to taste that for eight months. The belly for pancetta. Hocks, I'll probably brine them and smoke them. Irish bacon." He starts at the neck. "The head is off," he announces. "Basically I want to open it up so it's easier to work with." As he detaches the front legs, he talks about how he wants to share his skills with apprentices, especially since Vancouver Community College no longer has a butchery program.

As Jeremy Keighley, junior sous-chef, takes the shoulders for deboning, rolling, and tying, Cousins roots around inside the carcass trying to locate the hipbone. He identifies "the flank; the hanger steak is right here, the tenderloin is here". He pops hipbones with his hands, then cuts through and around the ham. "You have to watch it sometimes," he says: cold fingers and sharp knives are not the safest of matches.

Where a typical North American supermarket sells a paucity of pork cuts–chops, ribs, fillet; that's about it–a deft butcher sees more options. Cousins knows the anatomy of an animal, where one muscle ends and another begins, so that under his purposeful knife point, they seem to fall apart automatically. "The French break it all down," he says, demonstrating the "10–and you could probably get up to 14" different cuts he can get from a boned shoulder. He mulls over the large section of pig still to be dealt with. This entire animal is for curing. Otherwise, he could cut a saddle or a number of roasts, he says, before he starts slicing the knife down the backbone. "This is the important stuff, the fat," he says, integral to sausages, terrines, rillettes , and confit .

He now has two tidy rectangles of meat, each about 30 by 60 centimetres, and close to seven kilos, which he reduces to four prime cuts: loins "from the back of the neck to the butt", and tenderloins. Cousins talks of doing Internet marketing so he can bring meat to your doorstep as butchers once did, and of selling Sunday roasts complete with a recipe card.

"I have a lot of respect for an animal I'm putting my knife into," he says, "I have a use for everything." Cleaver in hand, he whacks the carcass into chunks, but not before carefully excising any meat scraps, for "sausages, pâté, or something". The only time you hear the whine of the band saw is when he cuts off the ribs to go in the stockpot along with water and mirepoix . (The stock eventually ends up in soup and a staff cassoulet.)

Meanwhile sous-chef Nick Allen has mixed kosher salt, sugar, thyme sprigs, and juniper berries. The hams will be dry-brined for three months, then hung for six, to become prosciutto. Pancetta, salted, sugared, rolled, and tied, takes a month. If Cousins can be patient, so can you, and it'll be worth the wait. When his butcher's shop opens you'll be able to buy meat cut to order. "Beef, pork, chicken, lamb, seasonal boar, housemade sausages, pâtés, terrines," Cousins lists. Thick-cut bacon if you want it. Charcuterie will be sliced to eat on the spot in sandwiches wrapped in brown butcher's paper, and served with homemade pickles, pickled cabbage, bright-yellow piccalilli (a Brit favourite), and others to augment the cornichons that Cousins put up last summer. All in a high-ceilinged space that feels as though you're suddenly back in turn-of-the-last century Gastown. Meantime, for a taste of what's coming, slide into So.Cial at Le Magasin and order a charcuterie plate (small, $7; big, $12) to kick off your dinner.