Steve Courtnell, the owner of Pie & Vinyl, sat down to talk about pies and their experiments with flavours over the years.
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00:00 My name's Steve Courtenell and we're in Pie & Vinyl Southsea.
00:04 Similar to vinyl, it's an old-fashioned working class food that you can contemporise.
00:09 You can... we have lots of different fillings, lots of different pastry types,
00:14 lots of different dietary styles, vegan, vegetarian, meat.
00:18 We have lots of bands play in the shop as well.
00:21 We offer them the chance to choose their own fillings.
00:25 So we have lots of fun with it.
00:27 In exactly the same way as vinyl, it's probably the best known, oldest format.
00:33 But every new artist now releases on vinyl.
00:36 So they kind of marry together pretty nice.
00:39 And overall, it's a unique experience that we like to offer.
00:43 So what makes a great pie?
00:45 I think the key to a pie is you can put anything in a pie.
00:50 So, yeah, and it does very much depend on, and especially nowadays,
00:55 what your dietary, what your lifestyle requirement is.
00:59 So, yeah, I'm sitting on the fence with that.
01:01 Yeah, no, that's fair.
01:03 Yeah, yeah, so...
01:04 So what type of pies do you have, personally? What's your favourite?
01:08 I have the leftovers in the bin.
01:11 No, I'm joking.
01:13 I try not to eat meat.
01:16 So, yeah, and to be honest, I very rarely eat pies in here.
01:20 I think everyone, you know, sort of thinks I have pie for breakfast,
01:24 pie for lunch, and pie for dinner, but that would be very boring very quickly.
01:28 But, yeah, throughout the years, you know, we've seen so many different pies.
01:32 Pink pastry for Valentine's Day.
01:36 We've had green pastry.
01:38 Some of them don't sound very appetising.
01:41 We put burgers into pies.
01:44 You know, the key to the pie is that you can get really experimental
01:48 and just see what works.
01:49 And ultimately, your customers will tell you what works.
01:54 So, yeah, the best one is probably Moo and Blue,
01:58 which is a steak and stilton pie.
02:00 We try and source, I guess it's important to note that we try and source
02:03 everything as locally as possible as well.
02:06 So we use suppliers based in Portsmouth, in Gloucesterport,
02:09 and Coppenaway as well.
02:13 So, yeah, the Pork Sea Islander,
02:15 that's a barbecue pie, a pulled pork pie.
02:21 The Back to Black is really popular as well.
02:23 The Free Ranger.
02:26 And then we have on the vegan side, the Idles, which is a vegan pie.
02:31 And the band Idles, they chose a filling for that one,
02:33 and it just stuck around.
02:35 It's a seitan doner kebab pie with pickles and sriracha sauce in it.
02:41 That's really good.
02:43 Of course, no dairy, no meats in that one.
02:46 That's a real favourite as well.
02:47 Perfect, perfect.
02:48 And then, obviously, on social media,
02:51 you, as you said, you've demonstrated already today,
02:53 you've experimented and you do things.
02:55 What do you think are some of the more unusual pies that you've produced here?
03:00 Yeah, it's, I guess, some of the pastry colours.
03:05 We have tried all sorts of things.
03:07 We tried a savoury and sweet pie in one pie.
03:11 So you, I mean, pastry is the original takeaway material,
03:17 like Portuguese pasties, you know, you can put anything in it
03:19 and it's just that you eat it as well.
03:22 Perfect, really, very environmental.
03:25 But yeah, some of the sweet and savoury pie where you have,
03:29 you know, a meat filling cooked in with a sweet filling as well.
03:35 That was fun.
03:37 And then, yeah, some of the colours as well.
03:39 So we do pink pies around Valentine's Day.
03:43 We, after the pandemic, we didn't really have the resources
03:48 to continue doing outdoor events so much,
03:51 but we used to do a lot of bespoke pies for weddings
03:54 and people would choose what they'd like.
03:56 And yeah, looking back, there was some interesting ideas there.
03:59 We do canna pies as well, which were quite small pies
04:03 for guests on arrival, for example.
04:05 So, yeah, there's lots of different colours,
04:08 lots of different flavours and lots chosen by bands that,
04:13 you know, are quite big artists now that have been in the shop
04:16 and played in the shop for us.
04:18 Any other big names that have made or done pies for you?
04:22 Yeah, Wolf Vallis, the band Wolf Vallis,
04:25 they've played for us a few times.
04:26 They've had a couple of stabs at pies.
04:28 We asked Dave Grohl.
04:32 He suggested a filling.
04:36 That was during the pandemic.
04:38 We also worked with...
04:40 We've done a couple of record releases
04:42 where we would put the download code on the pie.
04:46 It was obviously on a sugar paper.
04:48 We worked with a great local record company,
04:51 Strong Island Recordings,
04:53 and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards,
04:56 they released a live album via one of our pies.
05:02 So, yeah, it gets quite interesting.
05:05 Nothing's off limits.
05:07 Yeah, and I said last one, but maybe one last one.
05:09 Yeah, of course.
05:10 Has there been any kind of ones that just have not worked?
05:14 Ones that you've tried that are just not?
05:17 They... Yeah, they have, I'm sure.
05:22 Not too many that spring to mind because they all kind of sell,
05:26 but we know when things don't work
05:28 and we're always quick with ideas to replace it.
05:32 Yeah, we've got so many different flavours.
05:35 We did want to bring out a cookbook as well
05:39 with some of our more popular flavours in.
05:42 This was all before I had children,
05:44 I had more time.
05:46 So, yeah, there's definitely some that don't work
05:48 and that's all part of it.
05:49 Our customers will ultimately tell us if something doesn't work
05:53 or we're going a bit too far,
05:54 but it's really fun experimenting.
05:56 (upbeat music)
05:59 (upbeat music)