Thursday 12 March 2015

100 Years of Pie at S & R Kelly

S & R Kelly - Traditional Pie and Mash Shop Review

At Pierate we know how competitive the it is in the world of Pie. There are so many great pie companies out there so when one celebrates it’s 100th birthday then they must be onto a good thing! On Saturday 14th March 2015 S & R Kelly at 284 Bethnal Green Road in London celebrate 100 years of bringing little pastry packages of joy into peoples lives. It seems appropriate to add them to the pie rankings at Pierate to celebrate this special occasion.


When hunting down S & R Kelly you may notice that there is also a G Kelly on the same road and it is easy to get confused. This kind of thing seems to be common in the Traditional London Pie and Mash scene, with a number of members of the Manze family running their own pie shops such as L. Manze and M. Manze.

As you might imagine given the age of the shop, S & R Kelly is very traditional. This is quick and convenient food, not the gourmet pies served at newer places like Piebury Corner. This is reflected in the price with a pie alone costing £2.10 and pie and mash £3. It seems that S & R Kelly has been renovated somewhat over its 100 years, as whilst it looks old, it doesn’t seem quite as old school as the rival G Kelly but it is still quiet charming. The traditional booths are present and correct and I grabbed a pie and found myself a space. Despite it being lunch time I was a bit concerned by their lack of trade. It did soon pick up though with a flood of people through the doors at once. I wondered whether there is a set time that people traditionally come for their pie and mash or if it was just that G Kelly had run out of pies?

The pie was small for an individual pie, for the completely fulfilling experience I think you really need to get pie and mash (or one of the other dazzling array of options such as 2 pie and mash). The pie came swimming in the traditional parsley liquor rather than gravy, so it is good that I have come to love this particular sauce with my pies. This particular liquor was one of the best. The pie itself had a nice, meaty, minced beef filling and for a sit down pie in London it was fantastic for the price. I found the pastry was strangely chewy, a bit like the Goddards version which we have reviewed previously  . Overall I enjoyed it, I could certainly have eaten another given that it was quite small. But I held myself back, with G Kelly down the road it seemed too good an opportunity not to do a head to head comparison! See how G Kelly scored and which pie came out on top...

For now though, if you get a chance, do get down to S & R Kelly to join in the celebrations. They are trying to raise a money for a memorial for the 173 people who died in the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster (see the flyer below)



Condition – 4.3 out of 7 
Colour – 3.7 out of 7 - Perhaps a little overly brown in places
Cost - 6.0 out of 7 
Capacity – 3.7 out of 7 – Not the biggest individual pie and it wasn't completely filled.
Chewiness -3.7 out of 7 – The meat wasn’t chewy but the pastry was, a bit odd.
Content – 4.2 out of 7 – Simple but effective
Consistency – 4.0 out of 7 – I would have another

Traditional Minced Beef (S & R Kelly) 
4.23/7 

SJL

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