Boiling water, butter and vinegar go into the shortcrust before flour does at Norman's Proppa Pies, the new St Kilda bakery where gravy, mash and puff pastry now have their own bayside counter. Norman's Proppa Pies St Kilda is the pie shop from Dave Pannell and Brad Balbi, the pair behind nearby Sorsi e Morsi, and it brings British-style shepherd's pies, slow-braised beef brisket and butter chicken pies to a neighborhood that had no similar shop close by.
The shop takes its name from Pannell's grandfather Norman, a navy chef who made shepherd's and cottage pies for weekend caravanning trips when Pannell was growing up in the English Midlands.
What Norman's Proppa Pies in St Kilda Brings to the Counter
Pannell and Balbi also run Sorsi e Morsi just around the corner, a venue that moves from coffee to spritz to nightcap. The new shop narrows the focus to pastry and filling, with the house building both parts rather than buying in shells.
There are pastry-lidded pies with puff tops, beef pies with sauce folded into the base, sausage rolls in two registers, and a shepherd's pie that carries lamb mince under buttery mash. "Proppa" comes through as a Northern English twist on proper, a clue to the way the menu leans into mushy peas, gravy and the idea of pie as a sit-down plate.
For a first order, start with the beef brisket pie if you want to understand the kitchen's base work. The brisket is slow-braised in beef stock with 13 herbs and spices, then slurried with flour before it goes into the pastry. That filling becomes the foundation for other beef pies too, including versions with fresh jalapeños and Stilton, and another with creamy green peppercorn sauce (Smh).
A Navy Chef's Shepherd's Pie, Rebuilt in Pastry
Norman made shepherd's pies with lamb mince and cottage pies with beef, both topped with mashed potato, during Pannell's childhood.
At Norman's Proppa Pies, the shepherd's pie uses lamb mince cooked for hours with mushrooms, rosemary and bay leaves. The filling goes into a pastry casing, then gets a swirl of buttery mash on top. Add mushy peas and gravy if you are eating it as the kitchen frames it, though that turns the order into a plate-and-cutlery job rather than a walk down the street with one hand free.
A plain pastry-lidded pie can travel. A potato-topped pie with gravy asks for a table. Bench seats are planned for the shop, which should make on-site eating easier once they are installed. Until then, the shepherd's pie makes the most sense as a home-table order, especially if you want the peas and gravy to do their work without collapsing the crust into a paper bag.
The Pastry Work Behind the Brisket and Butter Chicken
The shortcrust base starts hot, with boiling water, butter and vinegar worked into flour. That process makes a smooth dough with enough strength to hold fillings that would punish a softer shell. The puff pastry tops are layered with butter, giving the lid crispness without turning lunch into flakes down the front of a shirt.
The butter chicken pie uses whole roast chickens, and the bones go into the beef stock, a behind-the-counter detail that ties the chicken line back into the beef base rather than leaving each filling as a separate island.
The vegetarian cauliflower pie with three-cheese sauce does a similar job for the meat-free side of the counter, relying on sauce and pastry rather than trying to imitate a beef pie (Smh).
If you are ordering for a group, add one of each and let the pastry do the comparison. For sweets, the rhubarb and strawberry pie keeps fruit on the board, while the chocolate cream pie folds custard with melted chocolate for a silky English-style finish after the savoury pies.
Dave Pannell, Brad Balbi and the Bakery Lineage
Norman's Proppa Pies joins those two lines rather than treating pastry as a side project to Sorsi e Morsi.
The next planned move is select-night "pie and pea supper" service.
How to Order Without Losing the Crust
Ask for a fresh potato-topped pie if the shepherd's pie has been sitting in the warmer. The mash-topped format is more vulnerable than a sealed puff lid, and the difference shows when gravy joins the plate.
If you are eating nearby, choose the beef brisket pie first, then add mushy peas and gravy only if you have somewhere to sit. If you are taking pies back to a table, make the shepherd's pie the order, because the lamb mince, mushrooms, rosemary, bay leaves and mash need cutlery. If you are walking, a sausage roll or a puff-topped beef pie is the safer hand-held move.
For a two-person order, make it brisket and butter chicken, then split a British-style pork sausage roll. That combination covers the kitchen's main lanes: the 13-herb-and-spice beef braise, the roast-chicken filling, and the sausage roll line. Add the rhubarb and strawberry pie if you want fruit after gravy, or the chocolate cream pie if custard and melted chocolate sound like the right finish.
Three Victorian Pie Runs for the Road
Norman's gives St Kilda a new local counter, but Victoria already has pie shops that reward a detour. Rolling Pin Pies has outlets around Geelong and the Bellarine, with a Drysdale shop at 2/3 Wyndham Street. It recently won awards in the gourmet categories of the Great Aussie Pie Comp with pies including kangaroo rendang, "Bombay beef" and masala mash, and barbecued brisket with jalapeño and cheese (Smh).
Hope Bakery at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat works from a different kind of oven. Its traditional wood-fired Scotch oven bakes Cornish pasties with apple, steak pies and sausage rolls at Bradshaw Street.
Gum Tree Pies keeps the north-east run covered, with a production kitchen in Yackandandah and outposts in Wodonga and Bright. The range includes classic steak pies, a Guinness pie, lamb and mint, Penang pumpkin and creamy cauliflower.