Can London’s pie and mash shops make a comeback?

Pie and mash shops have been “pushed to the brink of extinction” in recent years, as gentrification sent Londoners out of the East End – taking the traditional Cockney cuisine with them, said Demi Perera in The New York Times.

But could the push to give pie and mash special protected status, and a younger generation’s renewed interest in jellied eels, spell a revival of the capital’s beleaguered eateries?

‘An acquired taste’

“Pie and mash is an integral part of Cockney culture,” said Perera in The New York Times. The first dedicated shop opened in the mid-19th century as shipping docks began popping up in east London, and workers needed “quick, cheap, warm meals”. To begin with, the pies were stuffed with eels (which were easy to source from the River Thames) but mincemeat fillings soon grew in popularity, relegating jellied eels to a side dish. The meal has remained intact ever since: “a handmade minced beef pie served with mashed potato scraped onto the side of a plate with a well of parsley sauce, known as liquor, poured into the middle”.

But London’s pie and mash shops have been “dwindling” in recent years, said The Economist. There are now fewer than 40 in the capital – down from almost 300 in the mid 1800s. Soaring rents and property prices have “pushed” many of the locals who once lived in neighbourhoods like Shoreditch and Hackney out to nearby counties like Essex and Kent. Food preferences are also shifting: “Jellied eels are an acquired taste.” For the same price as a pie and mash, young people are choosing to spend their lunch money in chains like Greggs and Pret a Manger.

Last year, the “iconic” family-run Harringtons Eel and Pie House in Tooting, south London, shuttered its doors after 116 years on the high street, said Freya Parsons in The Sun. In an “emotional” post on social media, the shop’s owner said the “very upsetting” decision had been made to sell the property and “move forward”.

“We have to save London’s pie and mash,” said Fat Tony in The Standard. It’s one of the capital’s “important” institutions, “as famous as Tower Bridge”, and jellied eels are “East End delicacies that you can’t find anywhere else”. He said he found it “bizarre” that people would rather go to Pret than enjoy the traditional “quintessentially London” dish. “It’s up to us to keep it alive.”

A new homeland

There are encouraging signs that pie and mash is “making a surprise comeback”, said Jonathan Thompson in The Washington Post. A younger generation is unearthing the “delights of minced beef pies and mashed potato, served with lashings of a Kermit-green parsley sauce”. And David Beckham celebrated his knighthood last year by taking his mum Sandra to a pie shop for a bowl of jellied eels. There has even been a “push in parliament”, led by Conservative MP Richard Holden, for traditional pie and mash to receive protected status like Scottish salmon and Welsh lamb.

London’s “elite restaurants” are keen to cash in on the buzz. The Wolseley in Mayfair added “the ultimate Cockney classic” to its menu last year to celebrate British Pie Week, served with a “twist of chilli vinegar”, priced at £24.50, “roughly four times the price” of an average pie shop. Going one step further, the five-star Rosewood Hotel has opened a dedicated “Pie Room” where “waiters in jaunty tartan trousers and bow ties serve braised-beef pies with bone marrow and an optional champagne pairing for a whopping £36”. This is a “far cry” from the origins of the “cheap, nourishing food”. Tony Lane, owner of Tony’s Pie & Mash in Waltham Abbey, isn’t impressed. “They’re taking the piss, to be honest”, he told the publication.

The pie and mash scene is “alive” and thriving in Essex, said Tomé Morrissy-Swan in The Guardian. New shops are cropping up everywhere from Basildon to Chelmsford, and “diners of all ages are tucking into pies”. It seems “London’s original fast food is finding a new homeland”.