All pies are not created equal. The best pie I’ve ever eaten was in fact a pudding, which, I think, is surely a type of pie. And it was the other week. I’ve been eating puddings, of varying quality, all my life. They’re much of a muchness, reliably fine at whichever chip shop you decide to stumble into.
Grey and slightly flabby suet pastry, tipped out of a foil cup and onto a heap of chips. What you want when fish and chips seems like an expense too far. The type of thing you might see on Twitter posted by someone in America who is perhaps justifiably horrified and appalled at the sort of things we eat over here.
Then it all gets covered in ridiculous chip shop gravy that looks more like melted chocolate, and has suspicious lumps in it. It’s not pretty food, but I still love it. More so if there’s almost as much vinegar as gravy, but that’s perhaps just me.
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Inside that grey and flabby suet case are mystery meats, reputedly steak, and a few blobs of kidney. But not on the day I had the best pie (pudding) of my life.
Great North Pie Co started out in a home kitchen, with husband and wife team Neil and Sarah Broomfield up to their elbows in pastry and pie tins. Neil had worked for the likes of chef Paul Heathcote and Michelin-starred Jeff Baker in a previous life. So they know their onions, and probably onion purees, onion veloutes and onion foams too.
So they might be pies made with some cheffy processes behind the scenes, but their output is still pleasingly traditional - steak and ale, cheese and onion, roast chicken and mushroom, a corned beef, a butter pie with potatoes, double cream and white pepper.
Selling their gear at farmers markets led to a spot at the revived Altrincham Market, which is still there, churning out pies all day long in its cosy corner plot. They’ve won nine times at the British Pie Awards, and as well as selling their pies in Booths, they’ve got a café in Ambleside too. Their pies also go to Stockport County's Edgeley Park and the Etihad.
Now there’s a new restaurant, just opened at Kampus, opposite the Village and on the corner of the quaintly restored Little David Street. It’s small, but stylish, with booths running down the length of it and a welcoming bar as you come in off the cobbles.
Sitting under low lights, there’s a short menu, but the eyes go straight to the lamb mince suet pudding (£6.50). It comes with chips (£3.50) and walloped in chip shop style curry sauce. Quite honestly, I’ve not had better.
The suet is soft, the slightly curried lamb simply perfect, and with peas tumbling out from inside. The chips are slightly pale, chewy and chip shop style, rather than jagged fries which would have been entirely the wrong choice for this. I can honestly say I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
This is not to say that it’s the only good thing going on here, far from it. For those averse to suet, the regular pies are beyond all expectations too. They only use butter for their pastry, and the cases are rolled thin, making them delicate and crisp.
The 14-hour braised beef and ale (also £6.50) uses Yorkshire grass-fed beef doused in Manchester Union Lager, with roast carrots and celery, redcurrant jelly, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and seasonings of coriander seed, black onion seed, marjoram and pepper. The pie was as packed as it possibly could be with melting, braised cow, and sat on mash so smooth, you could spread it on your face and shave with it.
So yes, a bit cheffy, but that’s why these are the best pies in the city. Sorry to the Parkers Arms, which was recently named the best gastropub in the country, and is famed for its fabulously generous pies, but these might just have it, and certainly that 10/10 suet number.
In heaven, Neil and Parkers Arms chef Stosie Madi would be doing a duelling pie-off every day. But for now, head to Little David Street rather than the pearly gates. You shan’t regret it for a moment.
Great North Pie Co, Little David Street, M1 3GA
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