Nicholson’s Pub Signature Steak and Nicholson’s Pale Ale Pie Review

Nicholson's Steak and Ale Pie Review

With the grand occasion of James’ birthday to celebrate at The Old Contemptibles in central Birmingham, part of the Nicholson’s Pub range, it was a pie-leasure to see a hearty pie selection to choose from at the pub.

The pie, sold as steak and ale in a shortcrust pastry case with creamy mashed potato and sautéed greens for £10.95, was slightly more expensive than the other pies on the menu, but it made sense with it being a steak pie in comparison to chicken and a vegetarian pie offering. What caught my eye – and no doubt would catch some of yours – is that it was listed under the banner of “perfect pies”. Now, you know us. We’ve rated over 500 pies now on the Pierate Ship and so for anyone to call their pies perfect is a big boast which we were certainly wanting to test.


So how did the Nicholson’s pie rate? Could it be our first 7/7 pie? And what difference would the Nicholson’s Pale Ale make?

Nicholson's Steak and Ale Pie Review

Well the first encouragement was that it was a nice, big fully encased pie being presented to me. The gravy was in its own gravy boat – thus ensuring that the gravy didn’t make the pie have a soggy bottom – and the pie looked nice and golden. Sure, it could have had a bit more of an even glaze (and for piefection I would expect this) but condition and colour would score well.

The pie held together well when cutting and revealed a solid, if not spectacular, capacity of filling. There was a decent amount of steak and the gravy was very flavoursome and added to the appeal of the pie, however there was a fair bit of filler too in the nice ale gravy. All in all the pie tasted good and was enjoyed, but the pastry:filling ratio certainly wasn’t perfect. Reflecting on this I think it is due to the square shape, which looked aesthetically pleasing but does give a lot of pastry and more than a similar sized circular pie (even if the square pie in theory could hold a little more filling too).

At £10.95 for the pie meal it was a fair few pounds more expensive than some other pubs in Birmingham that offer similar – if not slightly better – pies, so it doesn’t score so strongly on cheapness. But it was a decent pie still and I would eat it again, especially in such great company with James, George, David and Poonam. I just wouldn’t call it perfect…

Nicholson’s Pub Signature Steak and Nicholson’s Pale Ale Pie
Score: 4.89/7
[Colour 5.75, Capacity 4.5, Consistency 4.5, Condition 5.5, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 4.5, Content 4.5, Total: 4.89/7]
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Nicholson's Steak and Kidney Pudding Review

As you are probably aware by now if you’ve read the Open Letter to Nicholson’s Pub, I was unfortunately provided with a Steak and Kidney Pudding last week, even though I did in fact order a Steak and Kidney Pie from their menu. You can also read feedback provided by the pub chain regarding the mistake they made in providing one of the Pierateers a non-pie.



Ordered a PIE, served a PUDDING, required to pay for a PUDDING

However let me just take a moment to stress that it is not the pudding itself I have the problem with – it’s the mislabelling of a steak and kidney pudding as a pie. At the end of the day, I still ate it and it tasted reasonably good. It’s just that I don’t write for “puddingrate” or any such thing! In fact, there’s nothing wrong with selling horse burgers either – as long as they are labelled as being horse burgers, rather than being sold under the beef burger name. Likewise it must be pointed out that there is nothing wrong with a pudding, as long as it is sold as a pudding and not as a pie.

But there are some noticeable differences between puddings and pies – which are documented in more depth in this article by the Telegraph. My own visual summary is as follows:


It does make me wonder at times why there is any need for a pudding at all, as surely it makes more sense to serve the food item with the lid on top, rather than on the bottom! Anyway, with this food item almost meeting our requirements of filling fully encased in pasty with a clearly defined base, sides and lid (bearing in mind the base, sides and lid distinction is not quite so clear on this product and the lid is on the bottom of the product!) let’s see how it rated:



Nicholson's Steak and Kidney Pudding

The suet pasty was quite tasty, but a bit thick and thus the filling to pastry ratio was not ideal. There were certainly points where I had far too much pastry in my mouth compared to filling, which is not the ratio it should be. The pieces of steak were quite prominent and I certainly didn’t feel the content was too steak or too kidney focused – it was a very well managed balance of the two. However I would have liked to see a bit more meat in the pie, making it slightly larger to better balance out the filling:pastry ratio.

The gravy had a nice consistency to it, not overpowering and not too runny. The condition was reasonably good considering it was a pudding, even when I needed to turn it the right way up to eat it with the lid facing upwards, as you would a pie. The colour was quite good to, with a nice golden shimmer to it. The capacity was quite strong; with fortunately not much padding with other things (there was a slight bit of onion, but not enough to make me think they were trying to overly pad the content and capacity out with non-meat).

If it had been a pie, I think £10.50 would have been a little bit more expensive than it was worth, but as I was in fact sold something I did not order (and that wasn't even on the menu!), in my opinion I don't really think I should have been billed anything! Overall, if this were a pie I think it would probably have rated at about the 5.5/7 mark, but as it was not a pie, it won’t be able to go on the Pierate Pie Rankings list.

Finally, a few suggestions:

- Ensure you label your food correctly to avoid confusion, particularly between pies and non-pies.
- If something on your menu is not correct (printing error etc.), remember to inform the customer of this before they order (and ideally update the menu as soon as possible with stickers or a reprint).
- If you have online menus, you have very little excuse for not updating these almost immediately.
- Respond to customer feedback as soon as possible.

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Unfortunately I was incorrectly served a steak and kidney pudding, rather than a steak and kidney pie, tonight during my visit to Nicholson's Pubs Bacchus Bar in Birmingham.

To avoid my mistake and because their menu (in print and online) is currently wrong, please note the following in my open letter to the pub chain. I have included some of the feedback I received on twitter below (still awaiting my phone call) and aim to review the pudding and another pie I ate in a Nicholson's Pub in the coming weeks.

Open letter to Nicholson's Pubs

I have raised this with you manager on shift at the time but wanted to put in writing that, while this is not a massive criticism of the quality of your food, I was genuinely disappointed to find that what I ordered on your menu and what I got provided did not match in a rather fundamental way.

I run the web's leading pie reviewing website (www.pierate.co.uk) which is the number one hit when you Google "pie review" and was looking forward to rating the pie at your Bacchus Bar in Birmingham. However after getting over the initial disappointment of you having sold out of lamb and chicken pies by the time I ordered at 6pm, I certainly did not expect to be served a steak and kidney PUDDING when in fact I had ordered a steak and kidney PIE off your menu.

While the pudding tasted quite nice (I will give it a full critique when I review it on the blog in the next week or so), I'm afraid you've scored a rather big own goal here by having "pie" printed on your menu when "pudding" should be there. I realise 99.99% of your customers would probably not care which they had, but for me I was certainly looking for a pie. After all, I run www.pierate.co.uk and not "puddingrate" or any such thing. We have a readership of about 5,000 readers a month at present and they want to read our PIE reviews, not pudding reviews.

I'm afraid I will have to disappoint our readership with this news when I write up my evenings account on the blog. I am sure you will understand that while we want to promote pie selling establishments where we can, a pudding is not a pie and we report the honest truth.

It appears this is an error in your printed menu (and the online menu to: http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/bacchusbarbirmingham/food/) which I hope will be corrected shortly to avoid others making the same mistake I did. Happy for people to eat puddings if they prefer, but they should obviously NOT be labelled as a pie (and in my opinion, should not be under a header of "perfect pies" when they clearly are not pies).

I hope this has been useful, will lead to a correction in the menu and am happy to speak to you further if you wish to. I will aim to post my review of my visit to Bacchus this weekend on www.pierate.co.uk



Ordered a PIE, served a PUDDING, had to pay for a PUDDING

Feedback from Nicholson's Pubs on Twitter:

We helpfully pointed out that the Nicholson's Pubs menu is in fact wrong and needs correcting (so that further customers aren't mislead):

@pierateers Hi, thanks for the tweets. This was an oversight on our menu & we're looking at getting them reprinted in the New Year to fix.
— Nicholsons Pubs (@Nicholsonspubs) November 28, 2013

Nicholson's Pubs don't plan to correct their menu error until sometime in 2014:

@pierateers no, just the next logical opportunity to reprint the menu with Christmas and all :)
— Nicholsons Pubs (@Nicholsonspubs) November 29, 2013

Nicholson's Pubs agree they mis-sold food to me by giving me a pudding and not the pie I ordered:

@pierateers we agree it's not a pie, but we're fine with it being under the pie header. The description will clearly state 'pudding'
— Nicholsons Pubs (@Nicholsonspubs) November 29, 2013

Nicholson's Pubs need up to 7 days to read my online feedback form and call me:

@pierateers Please allow up to 7 days from the date you submitted our feedback form.
— Nicholsons Pubs (@Nicholsonspubs) December 2, 2013

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