Pie ‘n Mash

PIE ‘N’ MASH – VARIOUS 

Cockneys of Croydon 

G Kelly – Bethnal Green 

F Cooke – Broadway Market 

Being in London I couldn’t stick a post on here without a mention of my favourite East End dish, Pie ‘n’ Mash. Now the problem with Pie ‘n’ Mash is that almost everyone who wasn’t brought up on it, or ain’t from the East End, turns their nose up at it! Well do I care? Not in the slightest, as they are all obviously very, very wrong! 

The pictures below are when I took my son to G Kellys in Bethnal Green a few years ago! 

I was weaned on it, and of all the comfort foods in the world this one is my favourite. 

Unfortunately, my two “go to” places in the East-End have permanently closed down, my favourite was G Kelly on the Bethnal Green Road. A combination of gentrification, competition, and the ever evolving London landscape has meant these old traditional pie shops are starting to disappear, and like the Routemaster buses, and red telephone boxes will soon be assigned to a distant memory of old London. 

However, I’m lucky to have an established Pie ‘n’ mash shop close to Emma’s place. Cockneys of Croydon isn’t far from Surrey Street market, tucked away in a side street a few hundred yards from the Dog and Bull, so my sister and I dragged the northerners there when she last visited! 

We did have another one closer called “Shaw’s Pie and Eel Shop” but it only opened in 2020 and suffered greatly as a result of COVID – bad timing! 

The following two pictures were taken a couple of years back when I visited F Cooke in Dalston just before they closed after 100 years of trading. 

I took Emma there and got a snap taken with Bob Cooke, he is the great grandson of the chap who founded the business.

Emma, predictably didn’t like her portion of Pie ‘n’ Mash, and even suggested it’d be better with brown gravy on (Sacrilege – so I hushed her voice to avoid her offending the locals). It wasn’t a problem though as I scoffed it up, with extra lashings of white pepper and vinegar! 

Oh and for my northern friends.. You put Liquor on your pie ‘n’ mash and NOT gravy!