Some people have Jesus, others have Buddha, I….have pies. Flippancy asides, where I’m from pies are practically a religion and it’s one I’d happily don a habit and lock myself away in a darkened chapel for. Habits sound comfortably roomy too, with all the pies involved.
I found a cracking place for them the other day. There’s a pub over in Angel called The Lexington. It’s spacious, quirkily decorated with polished wood, shabby chic couches and a drooping crystal chandelier. They’ve just put on a new PIE THEMED menu, dedicated to all things pastry crusted, meat filled. My favourite.
The story behind the menu is an interesting one. Recently they found themselves in need of a chef and, to the owners’ surprise, their bar tender put himself forward. Unbeknownst to them, he had been selling pies at street food markets in his spare time and was doing rather well. They tried his pies, readily nodded to each other and haven’t looked back since.
I popped in one Friday to try them out. As you may have guessed already by this blog, pies are topic I take very seriously and I wasn’t going to be easily pleased. The menu was pie-packed with a rostra of 8 pies and 4 different mashes, served (d’accord) with GRAVY. Everything comes in at £10.50 and the pies are large. There were vegetarian ones, including squash with spinach and feta, hearty beefy ones, ranging to more exotic sounding types with jerk chicken and sweet potato. I tried an exquisite sounding one of pig cheek with prune, leek and bacon because, well, why wouldn’t you, and a less lovely ‘all day breakfast’ one which I was entirely ready to hate.
I was mightily chuffed. The all day breakfast one was far better than I expected. I’d anticipated a gimmicky, flavourless blob, but what came was perfect, butter laden pastry, filled with excellent sausage, beans, bacon chunks and quail eggs. It had more than a small dollop of nostalgia, reminding me of a far finer version of those all day breakfast Heinz beans tins you could get, with sausage and bacon in. Don’t judge alright. Anyway, the pie was great. It came on top of kale and new potato colcannon mash and a decent gravy. If I had to pick holes, if they swapped to a hens egg and could manage to serve it runny, it would be incredible. Seriously, The Lexington, try to do this – I won’t even charge you copyright, and I’ll come for brunch every week.
Next, the pig cheek, leek, bacon, prune number. Again, perfect pastry and a tasty olive oil and roasted garlic mash. The filling was almost perfect. The flavour is fantastic; those prunes add a wonderful sweetness, alongside savoury alliums and nice hunks of bacon. The pig cheek itself was delicious, but there was too little of it in mine. It came in one large piece which tragically I ate first, and then was sad when I hunted around for more and didn’t find it. I’ll forgive it for the flavour, which was, simply great, and this is a quick fix.
Add to the loveliness of the pie, the bar also managed to ply me with my second weakness: bourbon. It was barely 12 (literally) and they tempted me with their massive selection of rarely found bourbons. Whiskey fans…go take a peek.
If you’re a pie lover, add this to your agenda. It’s really great and anyone that can make pastry like that deserves the business.
8/10
www.thelexington.co.uk
96-98 Pentonville Rd, London N1 9JB
020 7837 5371
