London’s ‘cockney cuisine’ is under threat from increasing rents and high streets in decline
The owner of Walthamstow’s only remaining pie and mash shop believes the East London delicacy will only survive if other traders abandon high streets and markets. The ‘cockney cuisine’ previously much-loved by the city’s working class has fallen on hard times over the past few decades.
Changing demographics and surging rents led to the demise of Manze’s in Deptford, F. Cooke in Harold Hill and Harrington’s in Tooting in 2025 alone, while the general trend of Brits tightening their belts could see even more drop off in future years. Tommy Barnard, who bucked the trend by setting up Barney’s in 2018, believes others should follow suit and move into more residential areas.
“Who goes to markets now? When you were little, you used to go down with your mum for shopping, you might pop into Woolworths and then get your pie and mash,” he told MyLondon. “Nowadays you’ve got big shopping centres like Westfield around and ordering online. The tradition is gone.
“All the shops around it are suffering, it’s not just pie and mash. I think markets will be gone within five years as we know them. So you have to adapt to the changes and move to where rent and business rates are cheaper.
“When I opened this I built my clientele from the ground up. If they moved out of the market areas, they have the weight of the name already behind them so they won’t have any issue restarting. It would fire instantly.”
Despite the doom and gloom surrounding the future of London’s ‘original fast food’, there has been some optimism around its newfound virality on TikTok. A Washington Post article recently heralded a “surprise comeback” in the British capital, reporting that London’s oldest pie and mash shop – M Manze’s in Bermondsey – has never been busier.
The younger generation’s curiosity about the cuisine has been harnessed by Alfie Hak, owner of Noted Eel and Pie House in Leytonstone, who’s gained 137,000 followers on TikTok from posting videos of customers ordering and the meals being prepared. One video which shows an older man making a mammoth order of five pies and five portions of mash has received almost three million views since it was published earlier this month.
Tommy agrees social media is the best to make younger audiences fall in love with the delicacy. “It’s also become quite a trendy thing to have now, people come here and say ‘I’ve had pie and mash now’, and tell their friends,” he continued.
“Everyone looks at reviews now, I’ve had young people say they’ve looked up a pie and mash shop in the area and come in off the back of it.
“I’ve given loads of people their first pie and mash – and these are 25 to 35 year olds who have never had it before because they weren’t brought up on it and are not from the area.
“They often say their grandparents are from here and moved out so want to try what they had. That’s been a really positive thing.
“We need to support our pie and mash shops, otherwise we’ll lose them. It’s about getting that message out to the public to support us, because once they go it’s impossible to reverse it. The old one in Broadway Market is now a glasses shop and the one in Walthamstow Market is a sushi bar, which is sad.
“We need repeat customers and you have to treat every customer like they’re a bar of gold because if you don’t, they’re not going to come back in.”
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