Choux Choux Patisserie - Steak & Mushroom Pie

Choux Choux Patisserie | 12 Byron Street, Bangalow NSW

Touting traditional French training and employing these techniques, owners of Choux Choux Patisserie have helmed this 50+ year old bakery for the past 5 years. In an area where felafel and lentil burgers seem more likely than the iconic pie, this place gets a lot of airplay.

The shop is a mixture of 1950’s diner with a slick, modern display counter with a mix of French pastries, aussie cake shop treats, and of course, the pies.

The mince pie is bypassed in favour of a steak and mushroom pie. On opening the white paper bag something is awry. The base pastry is raw white, yet the cap, also a short crust pastry, is nicely browned. In the words of Julius Sumner Miller, why is it so?

Chomping into the pie, my co-taster notes with disappointment that this is not a steak and mushroom pie, rather a mince pie with mushroom, and the reason for selection had been based on not wanting a mince pie…

On closer reflection this is a mince pie with a few slices of mushroom on placed on top of the mixture before “capping” (you can see where the pastry has adhered to the mushroom in cooking). The mince mixture holds no trace of mushroom and in itself has little flavour. Clearly the traditional French techniques (or any technique for that matter) are dropped when it comes to filling these pies, and I’m left thinking of Gordon Ramsay rebuking a French chef in Chelmsford!

This is a lazy, lacklustre pie – it causes little offence, but does nothing to please either.

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