Piebury Corner Steak and Stilton Pie Review from their new King’s Cross Shop!

If anyone ever asks which pie shop they should visit in London, there is only one answer I give them – Piebury Corner. For many a year, since we first reviewed them in February 2013, they have been at the top of our pie rankings which span well over 600 pies from across the world. But there has always been one slight issue – their pie shop is slightly out of the way for the typical London visitor, being up in Islington (N7).

You can therefore imagine our delight when we heard a number of months back from owners Paul and Nikki that they were in negotiations for a property just a few minutes from Kings Cross Station – which really is prime retail location for thousands of London commuters and tourists each and every day! Now that the new store has been open a few months, it was about time that we set the Pierate Ship down to London for a visit, and a Friday Pieday visit was the ideal op-pie-tunity!


Arriving mid-afternoon, I avoided the rush hour craziness on my 4-minute walk from Kings Cross Tube station and settled into my own seating booth, which comes with free wifi and USB charging points for your phone. It’s significantly more spacious than the Holloway Road store in Islington, providing adequate seating for around 40 customers. I perused the menu and – while not eating straight away, as it was a bit early – picked from the increasingly small list of Piebury Corner pies we have yet to rate! With 14 already rated, I went for one of the only meat pies left on my list – the Steak and Stilton.

Inside Piebury's new store - Image supplied by Piebury Corner

One of the most obvious differences between the two pie shops is that the new Kings Cross store has dropped the Arsenal footballer pie names – but this is hardly a surprise given its location much further away from the Emirates Stadium and its target audience no longer primarily being Arsenal fans! The main pies all still feature though, even if they are a bit pricier than when we first started tucking into Piebury Corner pies those five years ago! A standard range pie at the Kings Cross shop sets you back £6 hot and eating in, with the luxury range 50p more and gluten free 50p more again. While you can get deals at certain times to make this a meal with pie, potato and gravy, it is quite an expensive cost for just a pie but then this is no ordinary quality pie, as the shop's kitchen manager Anthony testified to me during a chat with him after my pie. He has many years’ experience as a chef in London but was surprised at the high quality of these pies, which he hasn’t been able to match in quality from a supplier anywhere else in London!

Piebury Corner Steak and Stilton Pie Review

Onto the pie itself and the great thing is the Steak and Stilton pie had all the great hallmarks of the Piebury Corner pies I had rated in the past. The pie was packed to capacity, again bulging slightly with the large pieces of meat inside the pie. The pastry:filling ratio was pretty much spot on, with a good flavoursome filling complementing the crisp but thin outer pastry. As you would expect from a proper football pie you could easily have eaten the pie by hand, picking it up from the plate, as the pie held together really well.

The filling itself was a fine balance of tender steak and a Stilton gravy. The meat was lovely and had a good noticeable flavour to it without being overpowered by the Stilton cheese, which has been the downside of a fair few Stilton Cheese pies I’ve had lately (either too much Stilton or lacking any noticeable cheese flavour to it!) The only real downsides to these pies, mentioned a number of times in Piebury Corner reviews, are that the pie is rather shallow for a pie of its price range and therefore while they taste great, they do often leave you wanting more! But I guess that’s a good sign what you are eating is a top pie! The Steak and Stilton is yet another “Pierate Highly Recommended” pie from Piebury Corner.

Piebury Corner Steak and Stilton Pie
Score: 6.18/7
[Colour 6.75/7; Consistency 5.75/7; Cheapness 5.5/7; Chewiness 6.5/7; Condition 6.75/7; Content 6/7; Capacity 6/7]

RAS

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We're now just a couple of weeks away from our blog's eighth birthday (which we've named International Pierate Day), and with that in mind we have some very exciting news to share:

Some tickets are still available for our Birmingham Pie Party with a "star baker" and top rated pies on 11th Nov!

The motley crew from our Pie Contest 2013

Yes, on Saturday 11th November from 4:30-7pm we'll be welcoming Great British Bake Off Series 6 star Sandy Docherty and the pies from our number 1 pie maker (out of over 625 pies rated on our blog) - MyPie!

Sandy, for those who don't follow GBBO (or whose memory is a little hazy!), was the contestant who referred to her home baking in episode one with words to the effect of "everything I bake at home seems to turn into a pie!" And for some reason, that seemed to really strike a cord with us on the Pierate Ship!!!

MyPie pies at the 2015 Pie-rty

No surprise then that Sandy immediately became our favourite of that series, despite some real competition from man of many homemade cooking aids Ian, the king of the jungle Paul and series winner Nadiya (who you may remember had the privilege of then cooking the Queen's birthday cake!) You can reminisce on all the bakers from Series 6 here in their pre-show BBC Bios or read up on Series 6 on Wikipedia!

Back to Sandy and she said back in her pre-show bio that "she bakes to show her family, friends and colleagues that she cares about them" - which is a great outlook on baking and we look forward to her bringing some of her baking magic with her when she brings some pies to our pie party and chats a bit about life in the tent and what she's up to these days. We were gutted that Sandy was eliminated before the week when the bakers all had to make a game pie, but can't wait to try her pies for real - not just drool over our TV screens!

Just take a look at some of the pie pictures Sandy has tweeted us:

The journey of @Theakston1827 ale and @FodderHarrogate steak pies @pierateers pic.twitter.com/hu8LWeWJyE

— SANDY DOCHERTY (@SANDYDbakes) 12 March 2017

Short crust lamb shoulder and veg pies, just need gravy. Happy Sunday everyone. X pic.twitter.com/LPpJepzNOD

— SANDY DOCHERTY (@SANDYDbakes) 26 February 2017

Of course us Pierateers are no stranger to the Great British Bake Off either, as our first TV appearance came on The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice when we made a Crocodile Pie rated by none other than celebrity chef Michel Roux Jnr!

So while we had a break last year, we're delighted to once again be following the tradition of 2013, 2014 and 2015 in having a Pierate Birthday Pie-rty with friends and colleagues in just a few weeks time! For those wondering what it will be like, here's our review from our 5th Birthday Pie-rty three years ago.

Pie maker Chris with Pierateers Sam, Tim and Rob

Yes, like in 2015, we've once again gone straight to the top of the Pie Rankings to find a Pierate Highly Recommended pie maker to supply the pies at our eighth Birthday Pie Party, with Chris' Steak and Ale Pie our current number 1 at 6.61/7! And we'll have a top vegetarian pie option too.

And what's more, Chris has kindly agreed to donate the pies to us for a charitable donation, with £10 of the £12.50 ticket price going to charity Action Against Hunger. It'll be a busy week for Chris, as alongside baking the pies for our pie party, he's also opening up a pop up on the Southbank in London that week!!

We've still got a few tickets available, so to enquire about ticket availability to book your place at our Birmingham Pie Night in South Birmingham, please email pierateship@yahoo.co.uk with your order (Steak and Ale or Vegetarian pie). For your £12.50 ticket, you'll get to attend the Q&A with Sandy from GBBO (from 4:30-5:15) followed by your MyPie, mash and veg, plus a selection of homemade fruit pies people bring along (5:15-7:00). And if you bring a homemade pie with you - which will be judged by our star baker and the Pierateers - you will get a £2.50 discount on your ticket! Let us know if you're planning to bring a homemade fruit pie!

As you can imagine, we can't wait for our next Pie Party on Saturday 11th November and we hope to see some of you there!!

Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised. Make sure you Follow @pierateers and let us know your thoughts!

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Wycombe Wanderers/Pukka Pies - Chicken & Mushroom Pie Review

We have eaten many pies at Wycombe Wanderers matches over the years whilst we follow our home town team through thick and thin. Sadly though in recent years the pies served at their home ground of Adams Park have been pretty terrible. They are currently languishing near the bottom of our Football Pie League. You can read more about this in our 'Pies & Lows of Following Wycombe Wanderers' article.


There has been a recent upturn in performance on the pitch but this sadly hasn't been matched by an upturn in pie form. On Saturday I attended the entertaining 0-0 draw with top of the table Exeter and was pleased to note that there was a change in pie supplier. Instead of the dodgy 'Bisto' brand pies, Wycombe have enlisted the help of the ubiquitous Pukka pie empire. As I got near to the front of the queue in the lower tier family stand I could see just one pie remaining. With all my mental strength I willed those in front to order something else. A couple of burgers disappeared and I was home and dry at the front of the queue. I had no choice of flavour, it was a Pukka Chicken & Mushroom or suffer the ignomy of a non-pie choice. My delight soon turned to dismay. What I had been served very much looked like the kind of pie that would be left til last. A gravy explosion had rented a gaping hole in the side of the pie. What was remarkable was that somehow the gravy had dried and burnt like a grotesque gravy icicle hanging off the edge of the crust. I had never seen anything like this before in many years of pie reviewing. This was a bad omen, indicating the pie had been cooked for too long. Indeed the sides and base of the pie were very burnt and dried out. It was quite difficult to actually eat because the pastry was so hard, especially at the bottom. It was also far too hot and took ages to cool down. This indicated the problem was probably down to the hot locker the pie had been sat in. Being set so hot it hadn't just kept the pie warm, it had continued cooking it until the pastry had become not much more than a husk to hold the filling. Fortunately the Chicken & Mushroom filling was still enjoyable. There certainly was scope for more pieces of mushroom and chicken but there was by no means an embarassing lack of content. The creamy sauce maintained a good balance of chicken and mushroom flavours (although I do like my mushroom to be subtle). It actually made a nice change to my usual choice of steak pie. However, this couldn't recover what was overall a very disappointing pie due to the pastry! Next time I will have to try and get a pie before the game rather than half time. Hopefully it won't be so dried out!


Chicken & Mushroom (Wycombe Wanderers/Pukka Pies) 
3.34/7

SJL

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