They are as much a part of London’s past as red phone boxes or the Routemaster double-decker bus. But a slice of the capital’s history will pass into memory as the shutters come down on one of its most iconic pie and mash shops.
Since 1900, F Cooke has been serving its traditional fare from the same premises in the borough of Hackney in London’s East End. But the shop is set to close as owner Bob Cooke, whose great-grandfather founded the family business in 1862, sells an institution that in recent years has become a shadow of its former self. Another well-known pie and mash business, M Manze, also closed recently in nearby Islington.
The two boroughs have been at the forefront of the capital’s gentrification, and the loss of shops that have served unfussy and inexpensive meals to generations of working-class residents severs a tangible link to the city’s history.
“Pie and mash has been an iconic part of London’s cultural scene since the mid-to-late 19th century. It was London’s original fast-food,” said Nick Evans, founder of The Pie and Mash Club, a group of enthusiasts who meet regularly in pie shops across London and the south-east. “Anyone brought up in London before the 1970s or 80s would be familiar with pie and mash.”
When the club formed 25 years ago, there were 57 pie and mash outlets with London postcodes. The latest closures reduce that number to 22.
In F Cooke’s heyday, hungry customers would queue around the block for a minced beef pie with a side of mashed potato, topped with a thin green parsley sauce, known as liquor. Eels, served hot or jellied, were also on the menu. “We’d be banged out,” said Mr Cooke, 71, using local slang to describe how busy the shop was when he took over from his father in the 1970s.
But Hackney has undergone huge changes during the past three decades, as the workers who laboured in its now-vanished factories were gradually replaced by newer residents. These included wealthier professionals, many working in creative industries. The area also has strong Afro-Caribbean links and a close-knit Turkish community.
These new residents brought with them very different tastes, and the traditional butchers, hardware stores and haberdashers on Hackney’s Victorian-era Broadway Market have progressively been replaced by fashionable bars and restaurants.
“The old East End families have died or moved to Essex,” Mr Cooke said, who was born above the shop. “There are no Eastenders here now.”
“The demographics have changed over the years . . . The vast majority [of new residents] are not ‘our people’,” said Joe Cooke, Bob’s brother who co-owns the business. “They want their raw milk and a £7 loaf, that sort of thing. That’s about as far from us as you can get.”
Bob Cooke is unsure when exactly his shop will close, as he waits for the sale to be finalised: “It could be tomorrow, it could be next week,” he said.
On a recent lunchtime, about half a dozen of the marble tables were occupied, as word spread of the imminent demise of a shop whose interior has scarcely changed since it opened 119 years ago.
“When we heard it was closing we had to come down,” said Geoff Covington, 62, tucking into a £4 lunch. “Pie and mash seems to be dying out. It’s not seen as hipster food.”
“It’s definitely an acquired taste,” added his 21-year-old son Ben.
Libuse Subrtova and Martin Pagac from the Czech Republic agreed. The holidaying couple sought out the shop as an authentic piece of London cuisine, but their shared plate was only half eaten. “I didn’t like it,” admitted Ms Subrtova, 30, who found the watery liquor particularly hard to stomach. Mr Pagac added: “The potatoes were good but there wasn’t much flavour.”
Yet in some pockets of the capital, the pie and mash business is holding its own. At south London’s M Manze, separate from the similarly named Islington establishment, owner Rick Poole is planning for the next generation by bringing daughter Emma and son-in-law Tom Harrington into the family enterprise.
M Manze’s three shops include one near Tower Bridge that is popular with tourists. The business has expanded by offering a mail order service, selling to customers from the Isle of Wight to Aberdeen, and has moved with the times by offering card payment and signing up to the Deliveroo meal delivery service.
Mr Harrington, 29, who has a business degree, believes social media is key to winning new customers. “A lot of younger people don’t even know what pie and mash is. It is about attracting them, and Instagram is the perfect way,” he said.
Despite the Hackney closure, the F Cooke name will live on. Joe Cooke still runs a pie and mash shop on nearby Hoxton Street, while Bob’s daughter has opened her own in Essex, the county north east of London that many old East End families now call home.
“Shops are closing in the inner London boroughs, but new ones are opening in Kent and Essex,” said Mr Evans. “Pie and mash shops are just following their customers.”
Mr Cooke will retire, helped by a tidy sum from the sale of the three-storey property, and says his pie recipe will die with him. He has no regrets about a life devoted to pie and mash. “I’m quite happy, more than happy,” he said.
