The Square Pie Company Spitalfields Market, London EC1 (020 7377 1114). Meal for two, £13
As a Jew, I believe I am excused from ever having to go camping. My forebears spent so long under canvas, after being chased off the Russian Steppes by antsy Cossacks, that our camping debt was paid in full. As far as I'm concerned something must have gone terribly wrong if I am now forced to sleep in a building with cloth walls.
For this reason you will not find me in a muddy field at Glastonbury next weekend. I don't do fields. There is only one thing I regret about this: I will not be able to get my lunch from the increasingly innovative catering operations that attend these events. Until a few years ago this would hardly have been a sacrifice. The best you could expect back then from British outdoor catering was a whole hog roast, grown sweaty in its own superheated grease. Today there are companies specialising in Thai and Malaysian, Japanese and Chinese. Jerk chicken stands add a smoky bite to the air and crisp falafel are dredged out of portable deep-fat fryers.
One operation that will definitely be at Glastonbury this year is the Square Pie Company, though happily I don't have to go west to sample their goods. They have a base at London's Spitalfields Market, a funky red box from which they dispense pies, mash and peas to lunchtime queues of City workers. The idea behind the Square Pie Company is a simple one: take a British classic whose reputation has been traduced by years of poor execution - the humble pie - cook it properly, package it modishly, and flog it for £1.50 more than anybody else would ever dare charge.
In the main, they do this successfully, and the £4.25 the pies cost ends up seeming pretty reasonable. The problem with giving humble food the gastro makeover, however, is that it throws up the temptation to innovate, and it is not one the Square Pie folk have resisted. So as well as the classic steak and kidney, lamb and rosemary, and chicken, ham and leek pies on their menu they also boast a chorizo pie, a wild mushroom and asparagus pie, and, God help us, the chicken madras pie. The latter we did not try; really, there are limits. But a group of us did tackle the other five, half the 10-strong menu, and the lesson is clear: stick to those classics. The chorizo pie was a disaster. I'm a bit of a chorizo-head on the sly. Until this point I'd never met a chorizo dish I didn't like, but this one did it for me. The sausage was fine, or at least it probably used to be, before it was murdered by the nasty bright-red stew around it that tasted of nothing but tomato puree. Likewise, when we cut away the pastry lid on the wild mushroom and asparagus pie, we found a grey-black blended mess.
The steak and kidney, on the other hand, had a solid meaty gravy. The lamb and rosemary boasted sweet, tender meat and tasted ripely of the headlining herb, and the chicken creation had fine, solid lumps of ham. Like all the pies, the pastry was buttery and crisp. The accompanying dishes of peas, both mushy and otherwise, were good and fresh, and the mash, from skin-on potatoes, was made with care (though it was a little overpriced, at £1.25 a spoonful). Would I go to a field to eat one of these pies? Absolutely not. But if, by some Gentile misfortune, you happened to find yourself in the middle of one, you could do far worse.
· jay.rayner@observer.co.uk
