I first read of Piebury Corner in Time Out, and my love of Steak and Kidney Pies made me put on the 'to do' list. When the opportunity presented, finding myself in Kings Cross (just up the Caledonian Road) rather than the other home at Highbury Corner, I gave them a try for a late lunch on a Thursday.
When I went, which was at about 2pm, the place was pretty deserted except for a younger David Hockney lookalike (who made the staff take a video of him eating his pie and had successfully parked on the double yellow line outside).
I was only really interested in the s and k, so the lunchtime offers were not available to me.
Everything is sold separately, so you have to order the pie and the side and even the gravy is an extra.
The cafe is small with old fashioned zinc topped table and chairs. It can probably hold about 20+ at a pinch, and I noted that for evenings, they took bookings. I would be interested to find out if that is when the action really happens.
When you go in, from the point of view of the door, it might look as if you had entered a bar/bistro with its small range of bottles and the gleaming expresso machine
My order was a budget order of Steak and Kidney pie and chips. The quality of the pie was excellent and it scored an 8.6 on the CHOF scale. In retrospect, I think I should also have ordered the gravy to go with it. The chips were also of good quality.
It is difficult to tell from my photo, but the portion sizes are small. Another web site has described them as being 'sensible size', but when you are into eating pies, sense does not come into the equation, and to be frank, I had expected to leave feeling a bloated, but this was not the case. In terms of quality of the product, I could not fault them: unlike so many commercial steak and kidney pies that you might buy at a supermarket, this had lots of kidney and meat. The pastry was not too thick and the consistency was just right.
The staff were encouraging and friendly, and a I got chatting to the waitress/counter staff who claimed to come from Baltimore via Arkansas. It was a bizarre mix of the merits of Bill Clinton and the dangers of downtown Baltimore.
This had started out for me with the intention of being a cheap quick lunch stop, but the Pie cost £7, and the chips £3, and there was 10% automatically added on to the bill. I was too mean to ask for drink and/or desert, as it seemed that this could quite easily get out of hand. On the other hand, if you were coming here as an evening main event, I could see that the extras would only bring this into the realm of a reasonably priced night out. I could have had the set lunch meal for about £8, but I wanted to try the S and K, which was not on the lunch menu.
If I wanted to take the pie home in its cooked cold state, that would be £4. I am contemplating buying a batch for the freezer.
Will I go back there again? Probably, but this is not the place for a romantic meal, and women might fail to be impressed, unless they really really like pies and small cafes. This was probably the best steak and kidney pie I have tasted in a long time.
