Peckham Pie Shop Open Lunchtimes Only, Since 1927: M. Manze

M. Manze, at 105 High Street, Peckham, SE15 5RS, is a lunch-only pie and mash shop: it closes at 2pm from Monday to Thursday, 2:15pm on Friday and 2:45pm on Saturday, and it lists no Sunday hours. The shop stands on the corner of the High Street and Peckham Hill Street, and it is the second-oldest surviving branch of the Manze family business, opened in 1927. Search pie shop near me in Peckham after 3pm and you are already too late.

Michele Manze, whose family came to London from Ravello in southern Italy, opened his first pie shop on Tower Bridge Road in 1902 and added others in Bermondsey and Poplar. The Peckham shop at 105 Peckham High Street, opened in 1927, was his fifth and final one. After he died in 1932 his son Lionel ran the two survivors, Tower Bridge Road and Peckham, while the rest of the Manze-named shops closed or changed hands.

In 1985 the Peckham shop was burnt down during the riots in the area, and a long legal battle followed. Lionel died in 1988 before it was settled, leaving his sons Graham, Geoff and Richard to inherit both the Tower Bridge business and the dispute. They rebuilt and reopened Peckham in 1990, although the legal case did not end until 1995. Since 2019 Richard's daughter Emma and her husband Tom have led the business.

By 1930 several of Michele's brothers had followed him into the trade, and there were 14 pie, mash and eel shops in London bearing the Manze name. Most have since closed or been taken over, and the family-run M. Manze business today counts three: Tower Bridge Road, Peckham, and a shop on Sutton High Street that opened in 1998. A separate Manze's in Deptford, run by another branch of the name, shut for good in January 2025 after more than a century of trading.

That history is part of why locals treat this corner as worth protecting. Peckham has changed fast around it, with new bars and restaurants along Rye Lane, but the order, the liquor and the tiled counter have stayed fixed. Ordering a pie here is a direct line back to the 1927 opening, and to a family that rebuilt the shop after it was burnt rather than walking away.

Like every Manze shop, Peckham bakes its pies fresh on the day. The pastry is made and rolled by hand, filled with beef minced on site from prime cuts with no offal, given a little gravy and closed with a top layer before going into the oven in large trays. Potatoes are peeled and cooked early in the morning, and Manze says the final mashing only happens when an order needs it, so the mash does not sit.

Ask for pie and mash with liquor, the parsley sauce the family says is unlike any other because of a secret ingredient, then add salt, pepper and chilli vinegar at the table. Stewed eels are cooked on the day and served hot, and jellied eels are made ahead to set. If you are new to pie and mash, a double pie with one scoop of mash is a better first order than eels, which are bony and an acquired taste.

Manze also makes a vegan pie filled with soya mince for anyone who skips meat, so ask at the counter whether it is on that day. The website carries a full allergen page, which is worth reading before you go if you have a gluten or dairy concern. Vinegar, salt and pepper sit on the tables, and the staff expect you to season your own plate.

Opening hours are Monday 11am to 2pm, Tuesday to Thursday 10:30am to 2pm, Friday 10am to 2:15pm and Saturday 10am to 2:45pm. From Monday to Saturday takeaway is available for up to 15 minutes after closing. That makes this a shop for an early lunch or a mid-morning plate rather than an afternoon snack, so build your day around it rather than the other way round.

Saturday gives you the most time, because the shop stays open until 2:45pm and the high street is busy with market shoppers. On weekdays the window is three and a half hours at most, and a missed slot cannot be rescued here, because there is no evening service. If you arrive after closing, the Tower Bridge Road shop in Bermondsey stays open until 5:45pm on weekdays and is a straight bus ride north.

Service is the classic counter routine: queue, order, pay and carry your plate to a table. Pie and mash is fast food in the original sense, and Manze describes it that way itself, so plates arrive quickly and the room turns over steadily. Hot delivery is offered through Just Eat and Deliveroo in select areas, and chilled packs of pie, mash and liquor can be posted anywhere in the UK from the Manze website.

For drivers, the shop recommends the Morrisons car park nearby, entered from Hanover Park. Peckham Rye station is the nearest rail stop, and buses along Peckham High Street stop close to the corner.

Start with Peckham Library, the copper-clad, upside-down L building by Alsop and Störmer that won the Stirling Prize in 2000, just across from the shop. Walk south down Rye Lane, the street of grocers, fabric shops and cafés that runs down to Peckham Rye station. Keep going to Peckham Rye Park and Common, where the oaks and the Japanese garden turn colour in October and November.

Address: M. Manze, 105 High Street, Peckham, London SE15 5RS, on the corner of Peckham Hill Street. Hours: Monday 11am to 2pm, Tuesday to Thursday 10:30am to 2pm, Friday 10am to 2:15pm, Saturday 10am to 2:45pm, with takeaway up to 15 minutes after closing. No Sunday hours are listed. Nearest station: Peckham Rye. Parking: Morrisons car park via Hanover Park.

Add M. Manze Peckham to a Saturday plan in the Karpo APP so the Rye Lane walk starts after an early pie, not after the shutters come down.