Legendary Pie and Mash Shop F. Cooke Closes on Broadway Market After 120 Years

The slow death of one London pie and mash shop

Legendary Broadway Market pie and mash shop F. Cooke closed its doors last week after 120 years, according to the Hackney Gazette. The family announced the closure in May last year, citing the number of restaurants on the street and a familiar cocktail of rising rents, changing tastes, historical erasure, ageing clientele, and displacement, — not veganism. Now, the family plans to move closer to their daughter, who has an F. Cooke in Romford, Essex, a telling illustrator of that displacement that has pushed pie and mash out of the city it has fed for hundreds of years. While Jonathan Hatchman wrote that “the tradition’s future isn’t necessarily as bleak as the discourse suggests” in a feature on Roman Road institution G. Kelly, they remain “cornerstones of a working class culture that’s growing far less present in London’s East End.” High-end local fishmonger Fin and Flounder will take over the space.

And in other news...

• Here are the best sandwiches in London, new for 2020.
• The city’s longest-serving restaurant critic, Fay Maschler, drops five stars on New York City supremo Daniel Humm’s London debut, Davies and Brook.
• Mandy Yin, the restaurateur behind the runaway success of Sambal Shiok laksa bar on Holloway Road, will open a Malaysian takeaway next door.
• ASDA is dropping meat and fish counters in favour of grab-and-go aisles. [Mirror]
• Good tweet: