British Pie Week: Pie & Vinyl owner talks all things pies

The News, Portsmouth

Steve Courtnell, the owner of Pie & Vinyl, sat down to talk about pies and their experiments with flavours over the years.

Transcript

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)

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