From tomato pie to roast pork pithivier to key lime, Royal Tavern is going all out for Pi Day
If you are a “Great British Bake Off” fan, this event is especially — if unintentionally — for you.
How to lure people into a dark, cavernous bar just as the weather is warming up? Royal Tavern chef Nic Macri is betting on a dozen pies to do the job.
Macri is the driving force behind Royal Tavern’s Pieway to Hell, a three-day bonanza featuring a globally inspired menu of pies — eight savory, four sweet, five vegan — that starts this weekend. The 12 options run the gamut from traditional (Key lime pie, smoked cheddar-onion tart) to Great British Bake Off-esque (banoffee pie, roast pork pithivier).
And “because we’re in Philadelphia,” Macri says, there will also be tomato pie with Jersey tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil, Maldon sea salt, and dried oregano, baked on a 24-hour cold-fermented dough. “It’s not a pie in the sense that people are thinking of pie, but it is a pie,” he says, adding that he’s also trying to add an apple pie as a surprise 13th option. “I’m a glutton for punishment maybe.” (He is definitively a glutton for punishment: Last July, Macri and staff literally cranked out thousands of hot dogs from scratch.)
This is a playful ode to Pi Day — a math-inspired holiday that has been co-opted by many restaurants in recent years — but the special is also an opportunity for Royal Tavern’s kitchen crew to try new things and do something different for the neighborhood. “If we just did what everyone wanted, all we would do is sell burgers, fries, and beers … but it won’t be as fun,” Macri says. “If we give people something to be excited about, they’ll come in for it.”
To curate the menu, the team considered pies and pie-adjacent dishes from around the world. That’s how you’ve got Nanaimo bar pie — a celebration of a western Canadian dessert layered with coconut and cocoa, sweet custard, and chocolate — alongside a wild mushroom empanada with chimichurri next to a roast chicken en croûte next to a pecan pie. The kitchen is making seven crust recipes (including hot-water crust, puff pastry, short crust, and a vegan pie crust enriched with roast sweet potatoes) plus dough for the tomato pie. Some are built for sharing, like the Japanese curry pie, while others come as a wedge or a handheld treat.
Macri is banking on the tomato pie, ham-and-cheese turnovers, and Key lime slices being the bestsellers, but his pick of the litter is the roast pork pithivier: an often-savory French-style pie that’s sandwiched by two discs of puff pastry. “It’s real nerdy, like borderline esoteric, but not because we’re making it into a roast pork sandwich,” Macri says.
A former meat monger and charcuterie whiz, Macri initially experimented with an even fancier pithivier — involving a pork mousseline center laced with broccoli rabe and wrapped in Tuscan kale — but he pulled back to make it less Frenchy and more Philly. As it now stands, the puff pastry encases thick shreds of slow-roasted pork shoulder that have been tossed with sautéed broccoli rabe, diced provolone, and fortified pork stock. The pithivier comes with a gravy boat of pork jus on the side for good measure.
Macri likes the pithivier so much he’d love to have it on his regular menu, but Royal’s kitchen isn’t equipped with machinery (a sheeter, a giant stand mixer) to streamline pie production, so this weekend’s goods have all been produced in small batches. If they sell out, they sell out. But maybe if a pie proves popular enough and the logistics work out, it could make the jump to the regular menu — if only for a little while. Last year’s one-day, six-pie Pieway to Hell featured a paté en croute that was such a hit, it stuck around for almost two months.
Still, your best bet to try everything, Macri says, is that “you gotta come in all three days. Back to back to back.”
Pieway to Hell runs March 14 through 16 at Royal Tavern (937 E. Passyunk Ave.) from 4 p.m. till 1 a.m. or sellout. Royal’s regular menu will be abridged for the weekend. “No one needs to worry, the burgers are going to be there,” Macri assures.
Besides the pithivier ($22) and tomato pie ($6), here’s the full menu:
Smoked cheddar-onion tart ($13): An egg custard laced with Birchrun Hills smoked cheddar, white onion, and a puree of roasted onions for big sweet-onion flavor. Served with a bitter green salad.
Smoked salmon quiche ($16): House-cured and smoked king salmon, Yukon Gold potatoes, chives, onions, and eggs in a short crust pastry. Served with a side salad.
Ham-and-cheese turnover ($12): House-smoked ham, Swiss, cornichons, and grain mustard sandwiched between layers of puff pastry, sprinkled with Maldon sea salt.
Mushroom empanada ($7): Thyme-roasted shiitake, oyster, and crimini mushrooms are sent through the meat grinder, then cooked with olives, peppers, and onions to mimic an Argentine-style beef empanada. Chimichurri on the side.
Japanese vegetable curry ($16): Vegan hot-water crust gets filled with potato, onion, peas, rice, scallions, and Japanese curry sauce, served with a gravy boat of Japanese curry sauce on the side. (In case you’re unfamiliar, Japanese curry is a smooth, rich, sweet-savory sauce spiced with the usual curry powder suspects.)
Roast chicken en croute ($15): Roast chicken mousseline (imagine a savory pastry cream) that’s peppered with even more chicken is wrapped in short crust pastry. It’s served cold with cranberry relish and Dijon mustard on the side.
Banoffee pie ($7): Sliced bananas, vegan caramel custard, and vegan whipped cream on a cocoa-graham cracker crust garnished with dark chocolate shavings.
Pecan pie ($7): Roasted pecans get folded into brown sugar, maple, and silken tofu (for body), then baked in a roast sweet potato-olive oil crust. (The tofu “mimics the eggs that would go in a typical pecan pie — and eggs are really expensive.”) There’s vegan whipped cream and powdered sugar on top.
Key lime pie ($7): A straight-ahead take with Key lime curd in a graham cracker crust with a whipped cream cheese topping.
Nanaimo bar pie ($7): Vanilla custard and dark chocolate ganache on a walnut-coconut-dark chocolate-graham cracker crust with sea salt and crème fraîche on top. This one’s so decadent, Royal is cutting the pie into 12 slices vs. the usual eight. “No one should eat a slice that big,” Macri says.