Great pies are not born great, they are baked great! (with apologies to Don Vito Corleone)
What is that tantalising aroma?
After working for several days in the AFTRS Media Room, it became too much. I had to find out what the great-smelling food that had been teasing me for days was.
I walked next door into the almost-empty RAS Media Room to discover a similarly almost-empty pie-warming cabinet, with menus of the most scrumptious-sounding pies taped to the wall.
The RAS Media staff offered me a pie since all the visiting press had left for the day, but I decided to hunt out the source of these great-smelling pies.
Which led me to The PieFather, who has two outlets – one serving hot pies, the other offering cold pies to take home to heat later – on the eastern side of the Ugly Fish Woodchop Pavilion, just across from the Dog Judging Lawn.
There I discovered Mick di Salvatore, the baker behind The PieFather, who has not only created a tantalising range of pies, but also has a remarkable story behind his journey to becoming an inaugural inductee to the Australian Pie Hall of Fame.
Mick started working in the bakery in his parent’s supermarket in the regional NSW town of Leeton at the age of 14, where he quickly developed a passion for baking.
He went on to establish Mick’s Bakehouse, and eight years later won the award for Champion Pie at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show in 1998, followed by numerous wins both at that Show and in The Great Aussie Pie Competition, where he was also an honorary senior judge from 2012-2022.
The Piefather is offering a “buy 6 – get one free” deal that I couldn’t refuse!
With pies like “The Don”, “The Mick Aussie”, “Mick Bacon Me Crazy”, “Mick Mack ‘N’ Cheese”, “The Big Mick”, “Mick Roast Lamb Dinner”, the “Lasagna”, and “Mick Parmy”, the greatest challenge is deciding which of The PieFather’s pies to try!
