The Southern Highlands gets saucy with Pie Time this winter

In all its shapes and flavours, the meat pie has long been regarded as the essential beacon of Australian cuisine. For pie fans looking to pay homage to the humble pastry, there is no better place to be than the Southern Highlands during June.

The NSW region's Pie Time festival kicks off on Tuesday with four weeks of pie tours, masterclasses, dinners, "pie teas" and myriad other pie-themed events with no shortage of puns.

Punters keen to sample as many meat pies as possible are encouraged to embark on the Great Southern Pielands Pie Drive, a self-directed day trip across Mittagong, Bowral, Mossvale, Robertson and Sutton Forest.

With 40 potential stops (perhaps slightly too many for one day), the drive is pitched as the best way to experience the Southern Highlands baked offerings and begins with a photo outside Mittagong's new giant meat pie.

Many Sydneysiders would be familiar with driving down the Hume Highway and through the bakery paradise that is the Southern Highlands. But why does the region's pies taste so good?

The Sydney Morning Herald chief restaurant critic Terry Durack says the Southern Highlands became a fertile breeding ground for pies because it's a food bowl for ingredients.

"The region is checkered with beef and lamb producers and grows some of the best vegetables in the state," he says.

"Plus, there are some really good bakers and bakeries. It also gets really cold and a highway runs through the area with an ever-new supply of pie-eaters. Put all that together and you have pie central."

Durack says he is a pie traditionalist and fond of "good strong shortcrust pastry, not too thick, filled with a coarse gravel of beef in a rich gravy".

"Chunks of beef belong in a stew, not a pie," he says. "It should be on the 'too hot' side of hot, but not as hot as molten lava, leaving scars on the skin. It should also be strong enough to keep its shape while being eaten in one hand."

Celebrating its 60th birthday this year, the Robertson Pie Stop is an Illawarra Highway institution. Pastry chef Will Bleeker has run the bakery for the past 40 years and will present a lemon pepper chicken pie for this year's Pie Time.

However, the crowd favourite at Robertson Pie Shop is its camembert, chicken and leek number. Bleeker puts some of the popularity down to its strong heritage. "A lot of our recipes are improved versions of what we made in the 60s, but with increased portion size because people didn't eat much back then."

Josh Nickl is a second-generation pastry chef at Gumnut Patisserie, another Southern Highlands pie staple. Opened by his family in 1995, Gumnut has three locations across Mittagong, Bowral and Berrima.

"June has become our busiest month," says Nickl. "Having so many pie producers in the Southern Highlands means lots of people come and seek out the area."

Gumnut Patisserie has created a Massaman beef pie for this year's festival. Nickl likes the way his family business continually adapts and evolves with the times. "One of my favourites is our Eden pie," he says. "It's a collaboration with Eden Brewery in Mittagong that features beef shoulder braised in their beer."

This June will mark Pie Time's fifth year in the region. According to Destination Southern Highlands group manager Steve Rosa, the festival has revolutionised winter tourism.

"June and July was always the off-peak season," he says. "Pie Time has been a major economic contributor and has meant June is now considered to be peak season. The number of pies sold goes up by 100,000 each year.

"The Southern Highlands has traditionally been seen as a playground for people based in Sydney's north shore, however Pie Time has opened up the area to many different audiences in a really fun way.

The COVID-19 pandemic prevented the usual Pie Time festivities in 2020. "So we called it Pie-solation and took it virtual," says Rosa. "We're so excited that's not the case this year."

To sauce or not to sauce? That is the question

Considered the greatest of faux pas for many bakers, adding sauce is often said to cheapen or ruin a lovingly baked pie.

According to Bleeker, Robertson Pie shop pies do not require sauce. "It's personal preference at the end of the day but I don't think ours need sauce," he says. "No good pies should."

Fellow pastry chef Nickl agrees. "If you're putting sauce on the pie, there's generally something wrong with the pie."

However, both bakers concede that despite their preference, sauce is a popular choice at their stores. Indeed, a pie is not finished without a helping of sauce, says Durack.

"A pie without sauce is like ham without mustard or gin without tonic. Bread without butter, roast chicken without gravy – fish without chips. Is that clear?"

According to the restaurant critic, the mistake many people make when it comes to sauce lies not in the use, but the type.

"The only sauce is tomato sauce, and the best tomato sauce is Rosella, closely followed by White Crow," he says. "I am not always this rigid and inflexible, but really, should Spain muck around with its empanadas? Malaysia with its curry puffs? I rest my case."