Comments on: Stuart Freedman’s Pie & Mash & Eels

By: Georgina Briody

Georgina Briody — Tue, 26 May 2020 05:21:19 +0000

So good to see Manze’s of Tower Bridge Road featured. I know it well, grew up around the corner in the Old Kent Road nearly opposite Bert’s, the pie and mash shop, long gone. It was a treat and I still know people who come up from Kent to buy it and sometimes have it as a birthday treat!!

By: Arthur Lee

Arthur Lee — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 09:53:54 +0000

As a 9 year old living in Bethnal Green, usually on a Saturday night, I was sent by my parents to get pie & mash from a shop in Hackney road, almost opposite the Children’s Hospital, I was told to tell them that Duke Colmer was visiting home & could we have the pies free, evidently Duke had saved the life of the shop owner in the war. Of course I new Duke was never there & I hated it but it did make me a very good liar.
Recently visiting Cooke’s in the Broadway, a women said she had come all the way from Southend for the pies, I said so, I’ve come all the way from Ibiza, where I now live.
Keep Rocking
Arthur Lee (Ibiza)

By: Ella

Ella — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 17:14:17 +0000

Manze is brilliant and about as British as you can get – I always urge any foreign friends to visit when they’re in London for a taste of real, traditional Britain! So nice to see Manze still doing well after all these years… it just got mentioned in this map http://www.discount-london.com/tastesoflondon.htm as one of the best places to eat in London, which can’t hurt either! 🙂

By: nik

nik — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 13:48:40 +0000

Been in Manze’s by tower Bridge a few times, lovely lovely eels.

By: rita m sartori

rita m sartori — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:45:21 +0000

what a wonderful site you’ have done here,lovely photographs ,and can’t wait to go visit them ALL :)xx

By: Martin Cameron

Martin Cameron — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:08:02 +0000

Lovely images giving an interesting insight to an old London tradition. I have still yet to try traditional pie and mash – I must make amends. Thanks for the beautiful reminder.

By: David Porter

David Porter — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 23:49:40 +0000

Deptford High St has two pie & mash shops, Goddards and Manzes, opposite each other. Then there’s Arments off the Walworth Road established 1914 and exponents of classic mashed potato ‘damming’.

By: Jan Marriott

Jan Marriott — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 15:16:41 +0000

I used to go to the Broadway every Saturday lunchtime with my grandad. I would carry the jug for the liquor, Grandad the bowl. ( times before styrofoam!)
Saturday mornings Nan would whiten the front steps and redden the tiles at the front door we never used at 29 Pownal Road.
I came from a family of licensed victulers , as far as I remember I was born from
The Bell, Shorditch……..after the war we lived above the shop at
The Marquis of Granby, Googe St
The Cock, Kilburn High Road,
The Gregorian Arms, Jamaica Road
we then moved to Margate
The Kings Head ( now I believe The Waverly)
The Captain Digby, Kingsgate.

My husband has also been reading your blog….he remembers buying jellied eels on Friday nights to take down to my Mum in Kingsgate .

By: Bintylicious

Bintylicious — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 16:39:38 +0000

Pie and mash!

Now, there is something that I need to have again, and another great culinary tradition that still prevails.

By: Gary Arber

Gary Arber — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 21:57:25 +0000

Unfortunately there is a cloud on the horizon, this old favourite is beginning to become scarce.
The eels arrive in our estuaries from the Sargasso Sea as 8cm. long elvers and have to find their way to ponds and rivers all over the country to spend their lives growing to maturity. There is now a growing trade in catching the little elvers as they arrive and eating them as a delicacy, it takes dozens for just one meal and ever more efficient methods of catching them are resulting in a shortage of mature eels in the rivers and ponds.
Gary