It is British Pie Week. And while every week should, perhaps, be pie week, this week actually is. So there’s likely some legal requirement, or almost certainly a bylaw, that states that pies should be ingested this week en masse.
With that in mind, you might require some recommendations as to the truly great pies of the Greater Manchester area.
Great North Pie Co
If there’s a better pie in the city, we’re yet to find it. Having long taken up their own special corner at Altrincham Market, Great North Pie Co now have their own spot in the city, at Kampus opposite Canal Street (though there’s mail order too). The menu will be changing with the seasons, but on opening its sumptuous minted lamb suet pudding with chip shop curry sauce and chips was truly spectacular, not to mention its 14-hour braised beef and ale. Taking the craft of pie making to the level of fine art.
Baldy’s
Baldy’s might seem like just another Wigan piemaker, but you only have to look at the menu to see that they’re rather more than that. 14-hour braised beef shin, pistachio crumb, confit onions, truffled cheese, black garlic, aged parmesan dauphinoise, confit belly pork, tarragon jelly - not all in the same pie, of course, but the ingredients and processes involved in Baldy’s pies are on another level.
You can buy online, or head to the kitchen in Wigan, but they also make star appearances, so worth following for their latest movements.
Ate Days A Week
Music puns aside, chef Andy James’ pies very much go the extra mile. Stocks simmered, tended and reduced for days, fabulous pastry and great fillings - recently including salt & pepper chicken, ox cheek, steak and Guinness, vegan tandoori - these are some of the best pies in the north west.
They can be sought from the Bask bar in Stockport, or for footy fans, at the Stockport County ground on match days. Worth a trip on their own.
The Black Friar
The pies at the Black Friar are something that the pub wears with particular pride, the offering changing up regularly, and always impressively executed. At £16 for lunch and £19 at night on the a la carte - coming with mash and peas - they’re not a budget option, but once you see the efforts they go to, it’s probably worth forgoing a few lesser pies in order to save up for one of these specimens, the bone-in lamb shank being something of particular beauty.
Pieminister
A chain, sure, but a ‘boutique’ one, you might say, with just 16 outlets, two of which are in Manchester (Church Street and Deansgate). Nevertheless, the quality remains high from these Bristol-born piemakers, who stock their gear in a host of supermarkets too. With a revolving menu of pastry-encased delights, these are reliably good - the Moo, the Moo and Blue (beef with stilton) and the Free Ranger (chicken and ham) being go-to pies.
Pie & Ale
Hidden away down a Northern Quarter ginnel (Faraday Street, off Lever Street), this backstreet pie speakeasy is worth seeking out. From your standard steak and ale to wild boar sausage, Korean pork belly, vegan chicken and three cheese, these homemade pies are something else. And if you head there at lunch time, you can grab a pie and a beer (or a glass of wine) for a tenner.
HM Pasties
Each pie and each pasty sold by HM Pasties helps to provide sustainable employment for those with convictions, having been set up by Lee Wakeham, himself an former offender who now helps others leaving the prison system. It helps, of course, that the pies and pasties are excellent, of course, from its jerk chicken pie to its award winning leek and mushroom and cheese and onion numbers. You can either order online or head to its hole in the wall outlet in Bolton.
Read more:
