News that the former M Manze in Chapel Market had closed soon after briefly reopening was greeted with huge disappointment by fans of London's iconic pie and mash shops.
For a few weeks, the Islington restaurant was serving a twist on the traditional meal, but after restoring the long-shuttered shop to its former glory, the new owner closed again due to circumstances beyond their control.
Although London’s pie and mash shops are associated with the East End, there were places to buy hot eel or meat pies served with parsley liquor elsewhere.
And the north London postcodes had their fair share.
Along with Chapel Market there was a branch of Manze's at 146 Canterbury Road in Kilburn, which was bulldozed to make way for a major redevelopment of local housing estates.
Dedman’s Pie & Mash at 139 Marlborough Road, Archway, Pyle’s at 107 Hyde Road, Hoxton, The Pie Shop at 452 Hornsey Road, Pie and Mash and Seafood at 20 Lisson Grove, Manze at 794 Holloway Road Archway, Jolly’s at 149 Stroud Green Road in Finsbury Park, Harrison’s at 6, Islington High Street, and Fortunes at 112 Church Street Marylebone are among north London’s vanished pie and mash shops.
Not all have been demolished.
Dedman’s is now The Great Indian pub and restaurant, while the former Manze's in Holloway Road has variously been a Greek, kebab and Indian takeaway.
The original Michele Manze was an Italian immigrant who opened his first pie and mash shop in Bermondsey back in 1902.
Eventually, his name was above the door at 14 shops as his siblings helped to expand the business.
One of those shops was M Manze in Chapel Market.
Two Manze brothers worked as separate pie and mash merchants in Chapel Market at the same time until they merged the two businesses into the existing shop.
It remained in family hands until 1985, when the last surviving member Lydia Manze passed away.
London’s pie and mash shops emerged in the 19th century as the first dedicated, sit-down restaurants for the city’s working classes.
Pie and mash grew out of the street “piemen” who sold hot eel pies from carts around the docks to labourers who needed filling, cheap food.
Eels were abundant in the Thames and on Dutch boats, which went into the eel pies.
They were served with mashed potatoes and a green parsley “liquor” made from the eel cooking broth.
In 1844, Henry Blanchard opened what is widely regarded as the first recorded pie and mash (or eel and pie) shop at Union Street in Southwark, selling eel and meat pies with mash and liquor for a penny a portion.
From the mid-Victorian era, purpose-built eel and pie houses spread across the East End, turning improvised street food into an organised dining trade.
The Cooke, Manze and Kelly families all built small chains, with Robert Cooke often credited for establishing the classic beef pie, mash and liquor formula from his Brick Lane shop which opened in 1862.
By the early 20th century, there were dozens of pie and mash shops—some estimate around 150 by the 1930s—in working class districts north and south of the river.
During the Second World War, rationing threatened to close the pie and mash shops, but public pressure led the Ministry of Food to keep them trading, and they became an important supplement to the weekly rations, alongside fish and chips.
Post-war, however, numbers declined as dock work shrank, tastes changed and East Enders moved out to Essex and the suburbs.
Just a handful of mostly family-run pie and mash shops are open today, their tiled interiors and bench seating as at the Chapel Market shop are a kind of living social history.
North Londoners can still get a taste of what it was all about at F. Cooke at 150 Hoxton Street and Castle’s Pie & Mash at 229 Royal College Street, Camden Town.
But get them while they are hot—as it’s uncertain how long these London icons will still be going.
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