'I had the best pie of my life on one of Manchester's last cobbled streets'

All pies are not created equal. The best pie I’ve ever eaten was in fact a pudding, which, I think, is surely a type of pie. And it was the other week. I’ve been eating puddings, of varying quality, all my life. They’re much of a muchness, reliably fine at whichever chip shop you decide to stumble into.

Grey and slightly flabby suet pastry, tipped out of a foil cup and onto a heap of chips. What you want when fish and chips seems like an expense too far. The type of thing you might see on Twitter posted by someone in America who is perhaps justifiably horrified and appalled at the sort of things we eat over here.

Then it all gets covered in ridiculous chip shop gravy that looks more like melted chocolate, and has suspicious lumps in it. It’s not pretty food, but I still love it. More so if there’s almost as much vinegar as gravy, but that’s perhaps just me.

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Inside that grey and flabby suet case are mystery meats, reputedly steak, and a few blobs of kidney. But not on the day I had the best pie (pudding) of my life.

Great North Pie Co started out in a home kitchen, with husband and wife team Neil and Sarah Broomfield up to their elbows in pastry and pie tins. Neil had worked for the likes of chef Paul Heathcote and Michelin-starred Jeff Baker in a previous life. So they know their onions, and probably onion purees, onion veloutes and onion foams too.

So they might be pies made with some cheffy processes behind the scenes, but their output is still pleasingly