The Pie House, The Punch Bowl, 7 Stonegate, York

11:24am Saturday 16th August 2008

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GAVIN AITCHISON earns his crust and says aye to a pie.

Joe Hill would have loved this place.

A Pie House? What a concept! He’d have been in his element.

Now I know what you’re thinking…Who was Joe Hill, and why would he be so happy here?

Well I’ll tell you. He was the man who coined the phrase “pie in the sky”, way back in 1911. He was, if you like, a literary pie-oneer.

In a swipe at the Salvation Army, Hill wrote a scathing sarcastic song telling the poor to forget their hunger, because they would end up in a heaven full of pies.

“Work and pray, live on hay; you’ll get pie in the sky when you die,” he sneered. And the phrase has remained with us ever since.

Hill himself was executed on dubious murder charges three years later so whether he is indeed up in heaven tucking into a meat and potato special is, I suppose, questionable.

But were it here in his day he’d possibly have regarded The Pie House in York as some kind of heaven on earth.

The house is in the Punch Bowl pub in Stonegate, one of the city centre’s nicest traditional inns.

They’ve done food for years, but The Pie House brings a new dimension to the menu, which still retains other dishes for breakfast, lunch and tea.

I first went in May and thoroughly enjoyed it, but my companion that day had since returned and been disappointed by soggy pastry and lukewarm meat. So I was only cautiously optimistic when a colleague and I went for lunch one Thursday.

There’s an odd boast on the dining room blackboard. “Pies are a great British tradition that we are proud to honour,” it declares. “That’s why we source our award-winning pies from some of the finest pie-makers in the land.”

Making their own would have been more impressive than buying in from the experts, but at least they were up front about it.

The board offers a list of ten pies, with a tick beside those currently available. Choices include steak; chicken, ham and leek; cottage pie; and one vegetarian option – a spinach and redcurrant bundle.

Given that pies were first created to preserve meat, a vegetarian one seems altogether wrong, so I steered clear of that one.

I was tempted by the fisherman’s pie, which consisted of salmon and haddock, but in the end I went for chicken and porcini mushroom (£7.95), while Jenny went for the traditional steak and ale (£6.95).

With it being lunchtime, we both did the sensible thing and had a pint of diet Coke (£1.60 each).

Now I’d love to wax lyrical here but I’m not Joe Hill and there is, in truth, only so much you can say about two pies.

Mine came in a ceramic pot with a vast puff-pastry dome on top. The chicken was piping hot, but those taste-buds that survived the scorching found it succulent and tasty. The pastry was light, crispy and generally flawless, but the mushrooms not nearly as flavoursome as porcini ought to be.

The pie came with new potatoes, green beans and a little spinach, all done in the unspectacular but enjoyable manner you’d expect from pub grub.

Jenny’s steak and ale offering was intriguing in that it was cube-shaped rather than round, which surprised me somewhat and would no doubt have appalled Joe Hill.

Shape aside, it was spot on. The beer was a local ale, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, and it came with a generous serving of broccoli, cabbage and creamy mash.

The meat was tender; the gravy bursting with flavour; but the pastry a little on the chewy side.

Neither of us had time for dessert that lunchtime but as luck we would have it, I found myself back there a few days later so decided to finish the job off properly. (The things I do for you, dear readers.) After a sandwich to start, I ordered an individual apple and rhubarb crumble (£3.65), which came enclosed in a pastry case. Joe would have approved, I’m sure.

I thought the two fruits might clash but I was wrong. Both flavours remained strong, and the vanilla ice-cream was far better than the run-of-the-mill stuff often served up in pubs.

The Pie House is a nice addition to an already excellent pub, and you can’t argue with the value. Proof, were it needed, that simple decent pub grub at a fair price need not be pie in the sky.

Fact file

Food: tasty.

Service: friendly.

Value: good.

Ambience: vintage pub.

Disabled toilets: No.

The Pie House, The Punch Bowl, 7 Stonegate, York. Tel: 01904 655147.

Gavin visited The Pie House on July 31, and then again on August 7, 2008.