I MAY HAVE EATEN WORSE

As Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, 'No worst there is none.' Here's one I ate about a week ago.

Of course, Mrs Lovett's pies have the great advantage of being fictional.  Mine was all too real, and admittedly it wasn't in London.

But not all the pie news is bad. A few days back, in London, we were in the Viaduct Tavern. Some sources will tell you that there are jail cells in the cellar, once associated with Newgate Prison, though other sources say this is nonsense.  Even so the place is happy to call itself a gin palace, as well they might.  The interior looks like this:

 And there we were presented with a pie-based menu, which ticked a great many boxes.  I briefly fantasized that there was some rehabilitated Mrs. Lovett working out back expressing herself through pastry, but no, these were Mr. Barrick’s Pies:

 

PHOTOS BY GANNON-NICHOLSON STUDIOS.

We went for the Pork and Black Pudding

 

and the Chorizo Style Pork and Wensleydale.

 

The Pork and Black Pudding was good, though I could have used a lot more black pudding. but the Chorizo and Wensleydale was superb - a highpoint in pie art, largely because of that cheese topping.  I can’t tell you exactly what they do to the Wensleydale to create the effect, something to do with curds and whipping I imagine but don’t hold me to that.  In any case they’re doing something very right.

 

       And possibly the most exciting thing I discovered in my recent pie research was that it is apparently possible to own a prop pie as used in Sweeney Todd, such as this one belonging to a collector who goes by the name of ‘Guardian Devil.’  What a time to be alive.