Butcher Tom Mylan is serious about his work. I knew this as soon as I saw a photo of him – a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a knife in his fist and a pig’s head tucked under his arm.

But within minutes of meeting him I find him to be equally serious about the community in which he works, in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Williamsburg. When I jokingly deride it as a haven of ironic hipsters, Mylan leaps to its defence.