Ask a scientist to come up with the precise antithesis of a bitterly cold January morning in Deptford, and they might just present you with a picture of Ravello on the Amalfi Coast — sunkissed, caressed by an azure ocean and blushing with shocks of pink hillside bougainvillea.
If it wasn't for the picturesque southern Italian village, though, the plate of pie and mash now placed by George Mascall on the marble countertop at Manze's on Deptford High street — steaming heavily and slicked with parsley liquor — wouldn't be here at all. A three-year-old Michele Manze came to London from Ravello with his family in 1878 to escape poverty, and in 1902, he took over a pie and mash shop on Tower Bridge Road.
By the 1930s, 13 Manze's were scattered across London — each terrazzo-floored emporium doling out the dish of chewy pastry stuffed with beef mince and gravy, sided with scoops of fluffy mash, and an optional gloop of gelatinous eels — that has come to define cockney culture. Quick, cheap and calorific, the dish was sweet succor for the working classes of the East End, and the shops became a community hub — alongside pubs and bathhouses. Pie shops then often had queues snaking out the door, and shut up for the day as soon as the last plate was licked clean.
In well over a century, London's pie shops have changed little. Some do vegetarian pies these days. You can order on Deliveroo. Certain establishments even allow you to use a knife (an item of cutlery once deeply frowned upon in the trade). But on the whole these places have remained as stubborn as Dot Cotton. Inevitably — in a fast-shifting city which thumbs its nose at nostalgia — they're now switching out the lights one-by-one: the Pie & Mash Club's website features an alarming list of shops that have ladled their last liquor. And now, Manze's on Deptford High Street — which has stood here for 111 years — is about to go to that great pie emporium in the sky.
The owner, George Mascall, retires at the end of January, and no one will take over from him. Ironically, given the lack of interest which means the baton won't be passed on to another eager pie-slinger, the buzz around Manze's in recent weeks has been off the charts. George is no longer doing interviews with the press. "The phone has been ringing off the hook, and I have my work cut out trying to run the business," he says —and you can't blame him.
It is quarter to 12 on a Wednesday morning, two-and-a-half weeks before Manze's closes, and only a handful of punters are at the tables, performing their various pre-meal rituals with chilli-spiked vinegar. A sign tacked up by the door, though, suggests this is the calm before the lunchtime storm. Until it closes for good on 25 January, explains the sign, Manze's will only remain open each day while it has pies. Like those thriving pie shops of yore — Manze's is once again selling clean out. Punters have come out of the woodwork. Journalists who wouldn't usually be eating minced beef before noon are doing just that. It's like London is coming to pay its final respects.
"Make the most of me!" says George as he bustles to and from the back kitchen — just visible through the door, with its silvery glint of retro ovens. Don't ask him for the pie recipe though: he's vowed not to give it to anyone. A group of elderly ladies say they'll see George next week. Someone optimistically asks George whether he fancies another five years? "I've done me bit for pie and mash," replies George. Behind the counter, pies are already lined up in paper bags with customers' names on them in felt tip. Batches of 12 frozen ones can be bought for posterity — ready to be thawed out whenever an acute pang for comfort food hits. It's reminiscent of that man who eats one of his dead mum's mince pies every December.
There is no immediate cause for panic. Pie and mash shops are still dolloped around London and beyond. There are three more Manze's (confusingly a separate enterprise from the Deptford shop, and including the branch that Michele Manze took over at the beginning of the last century), Cockney's in Croydon, Golden Pie in Battersea, the Noted Eel and Pie House in Leytonstone — and lots more besides.
There'll come a day, though, when the only pie and mash shop left in London is the facsimile of an F.Cooke in the Hackney Museum. That'll be the day when farsighted Londoners will dig deep into their freezers and set the microwave to defrost.
All images © Londonist
