Best ribs to buy in the UK

You may have access to Heritage pork producers at small butcher shops.They would know loinback or spareribs.

Beef ribs of smoking quality can be very difficult for many of us to acquire.Most should be used to make soup.

Altho Appleby's restaurants have sold ribtips and Danish baby ribs,most would stay away from them.

email Fast Eddy at CS sales and talk to him.Eddy works with the UK distributors of CS products and goes there to help them cook and set up some contests.

Just a bit on beef ribs, can you get whole slabs of short ribs?? A slab here in the US will usually have 3 ribs and measure about ~8"w x 11" tall x 2-3" thick. There is an excellent post and recipe by Smokin' Okie about "Dino Beef Ribs" here on the forum. I swear by the recipe and have cooked them over a dozen times.
Dino Beef Ribs

Best is a function of what the butcher can get.

MAKE FRIENDS with your butcher. When I lived in Australia, I had to show them how to cut what I wanted off the primal cuts but in the end, I cooked some up, gave them to the butcher and had a friend for life.

Key is if they are buying them already cut (like most US butchers) or if they are butchering the hog themselves (or cutting off of primals).

I'd tell them you want spares or back ribs.

If they ask questions, let us know and we'll help out.