Down-under pies in New York
Kate Monahan
The classic Kiwi meat pie isn’t usually considered gourmet food, but it’s an icon for many of us. Eaten hot from a paper bag, with its flaky golden pastry and savoury filling, a pie is unpretentious comfort food. However, in the hands of one former Aucklander, the humble meat pie is becoming more gourmet fare for New Yorkers and bringing a taste of home to antipodeans living half a world away.
Gareth Hughes, 36, started Down Under Bakery (DUB) Pies out of a Lower East Side kitchen in December 2003. His inspiration was wanting to bring something from New Zealand to New York, where he had been living since 2000. While eating a pie one day back home, he found the answer literally in his hands.
 After some research, Hughes found himself back in Manhattan, up to his elbows in pastry dough. A one-man operation, he works 15-hour days to make about 1200 pies a week by hand. He produces seven varieties for the New York market, including steak and mushroom, mince and cheese, and a shepherd’s pie. “I listen to New Zealand music while I make my pies, to add an extra level of authenticity,” he jokes. He sells the pies at several Manhattan pubs, caters events around town and delivers by the dozen to customers’ homes by bicycle or subway.
The majority of his clientèle hail from down under. “There are 2300 Australians and New Zealanders in New York,” Hughes says. “They are piggybacking my idea into the country.” At a recent ANZAC Day party hosted by the New York Magpies Aussie Rules Football Club, pies sold out within the first hour. However, it wasn’t only Kiwis and Aussies gobbling up the product. “All my American friends loved the pies,” says event coordinator Marc Colella. “They were going back for seconds.”
Manhattan pub-goers are also giving the Kiwi fare the thumbs-up. Tony Bonner, a sous-chef in Manhattan, regularly eats Hughes’ pies at The Four Faced Liar, a pub in the West Village. “You can taste how handmade they are,” Bonner raves. “The steak and mushroom pie is made with fresh portobello mushrooms, not little white ones.”
The pies retail for up to US$5 (NZ$8) and Hughes considers all the ingredients carefully. The flagship ‘chunky steak’ pie is made from sirloin steak and Hughes oversees all cuts of meat to make sure he gets no gristle. To develop the perfect piecrust, he sources special margarine for the pastry directly from New Zealand.
Hughes hopes to experiment with flavours such as Thai chicken or smoked fish and sweet potato in the future. “A pie is just a pastry shell – you could do almost anything inside it,” he says. “There are endless possibilities.”
With the Kiwi-style pie, Hughes is bringing a new kind of comfort food to the Big Apple. Move over hotdog, pretzel and burrito; the New Zealand meat pie is in town. 
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