Meet the maker of Wirral’s double award-winning pies

Piemaker extraordinaire Tim Aldcroft is now the proud winner of our latest Best of 2024 award – Wirral’s Best for Pies - for the second year in a row.

This year’s search for the area’s best in a whole host of categories started with hair and LA Hair was crowned our first winner.

Then we moved onto pies with customers and readers sending their nominations for their favourite pastry treats.

Voting for Wirral’s Best for Nails is currently taking place and we’re also looking for nominations in our latest search - Best for Roast Dinner.

Vote for Wirral’s Best for Nails 2024

Nominate your favourite for Wirral’s Best for Roast Dinner 2024

Ten tasty treats in Wirral made the shortlist for Best for Pies with Pies4u taking the coveted crown.

Tim and his partner Claire Wilmin hand bake savoury pies three times a month in their kitchen at home on Frankby Road in Newton, West Kirby.

They opened the business in 2019 selling pies at the Hoylake Farmers Market at Hope Church but the venue didn’t reopen after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The couple, who moved to home deliveries during local and national lockdowns, found a new location to sell their wares once restrictions were lifted – Heswall Farmers Market at Heswall Hall, on the third Saturday of each month, and have just started taken a stall at Tarporley Village Market on the first Saturday of each month and Wirral Famers Market at New Ferry on the second Saturday of each month.

The perfect pie

Tim, who is 57 and has lived in Wirral for more than 30 years, said: “I wanted to open my business because I felt we could make a better pie than we could find to buy.

“Most of the pies we tried either had greasy pastry or filling that just looked like thick sauce, so we went back to old fashioned recipes and values to make proper pies.

“All our fillings are made from scratch and every year we bring in new flavours and ideas, introducing new pies to our ever-growing and evolving menu.

“Currently, we have just launched a vegan mushrooms in Guinness with vegan cheese, which has been very well received.”

Over the last five years, Pies4u has won prizes at the British Pie Awards, held annually at Melton Mowbray.

They have three bronze awards and one gold award and this year scooped their highest award yet – Reserve Class Winner for cold eating savoury pie coronation chicken pie.

This makes the pastry treat one of the top three cold eating savoury pies in Great Britain in 2024.

Tim and Claire at the British Pie Awards earlier this year

Tim, who has been self-employed previously and currently works part time as an operations manager in the hospitality industry, said: “I always believe that the effort you put in is reflected in the end product.

“Customers are very supportive and many comment on our ‘perfect pastry’, which we make ourselves.

“We love meeting customers at the farmers markets as everybody has a story to tell about why they remember pies from their youth.”

What do customers think of Pies4U?

Why did they think the business should win our latest Best of 2024 award – and back-to-back titles?

One satisfied customer said: “Simply delicious pies, locally made with attention to detail catering for everyone’s favourites!”

Pies fresh from the oven

Tim said: “We have tried to keep the standards of our pies as high as last year so we were extremely pleased to make the shortlist for 2024.

“We were amazed when we heard that we’d won.

“There are some very long established businesses on the shortlist and we are incredibly proud to have been voted top of our category.”

He added: “We are nothing without our customers and we would like to thank everyone who has voted for us and who continues to support us at markets and with home deliveries.

“It is so nice to see familiar faces at the market every month.”

Steak and stilton filling cooking before being added to the pastry