My sweets-obsessed friend Nastassia and I have been dying to try The Pie Hole ever since it opened for business a little over a month ago. After several weeks of pining and planning, our schedules finally meshed perfectly this past Friday. It was time to have our pie and eat it too.
Rebecca Grasley and Matthew Heffner, a mother and son team, are the passionate pie slingers behind the cafe. All of the pies served here are made using Ms. Grasley’s recipes. She’s been baking for over fifty years and has won the best pie award at the New Jersey State Fair seven years in a row.
The recipes are executed by head pastry chef Adrianna Sullivan, who has worked in of some of the city’s best restaurants including Providence, Nickel Diner, and M.B. Post.
Nastassia and I arrived at the restaurant just before noon and headed straight for the pie counter. We each ordered a sweet one and a savory one. I was hoping for a slice of the chocolate peanut butter pie that Elina Shatkin wrote about in The Weekly, but alas, it was unavailable on this visit. Shucks.
For my savory pie, I selected the Caramelized Mushroom Tart ($5). The base was comprised of an inverted sourdough puff pastry, while the topping was a confit of onions and mushrooms. I liked everything about this tart save for the onion’s nagging sweetness, which drowned out the mushrooms’ flavors completely.
Nastassia’s Shortrib Pot Pie ($6.50) was a more well balanced creation. The crust was perfectly golden and buttery. The stewed shortrib filling came topped with a mountain of mashed potatoes. The proportion of potatoes to meat was slightly off kilter, but the seasonings were spot on.
Moving on to dessert pies, I chose a slice of Lemon Meringue ($6). While the curd and meringue were both quite lovely, the crust was very much underdone. Instead of a flaky base to go with the smooth filling, we got a mouthful of raw dough.
The story was the same with Nastassia’s Banana Cream Pie ($6). The pudding and banana filling couldn’t be beat, but once again the crust was pale and doughy. If it weren’t for this grave misstep, these pies would’ve knocked it out of the ballpark.
My pie hole deserves better.
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The Pie Hole
714 Traction Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Phone: 213-537-0115
There’s more to eat in downtown Los Angeles:
- 18 Hour Staycation: Omni Hotel Los Angeles
- Bánh Mì Mỹ Dung – Los Angeles (Chinatown)
- Bottega Louie – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Chin-Ma-Ya of Tokyo – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Church & State – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Church & State – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Corkbar – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Daikokuya – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Hakata Ramen Shin Sen Gumi – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- LA Market Restaurant by Kerry Simon – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Ludo Bites 4.0 at Gram & Papa’s – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Ludo Bites 5.0 at Gram & Papa’s – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Mo-Chica – Los Angeles
- Nickel Diner – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Starry Kitchen – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Sugarfish by Sushi Nozawa – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Sushi Komasa – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Syrup Desserts – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- The Spice Table – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Villains Tavern – Los Angeles (Downtown)
- Yojie Japanese Fondue and Sake Bar – Los Angeles (Downtown)
A mouthful of raw dough makes me sad. I had great hopes for this place.
Makes me sad too..
I’ve tried one of the savory pies but not yet a sweet one and now I’m a little apprehensive.
eww…raw dough! haha. Jk, jk…i’m still down to try it. I tried Pacific Pie Co. in PDX and was also pretty dissapointed with the crust
A pie establishment must be harder than it looks!
Javi’s right, running a pie shop is harder than it looks! The Pie Hole has so much potential, we just got a botched batch of pies, sadly.
Yikes! How can a shop dedicated to pies underbake their cursts? Let’s hope this was just a fluke – I need more pie in my hole!
You could kind of see the dough is not cooked thru even via the pics..thats sad..I hope they correct it
I eat at the pie hole (it’s by my work) twice a week. I’ve never had ‘raw’ dough there although they never do the flaky butter dough thing either. It was either a fluke or your expectations are off. I’ve eaten pie all over this city and this place is by far the best. You should try it again.
This place sounds interesting, I will give it a try even after hearing about the raw dough. But they sure messed up by giving raw dough to a food blogger!
Ralph - I was hoping that most people would draw the same conclusion. The underdone crust was a fluke, I bet. I’d love to hear about your experience.
Ugh, how sad that raw pie dough is. That’s a pretty bad fluke! I come from a long line of pie bakers and I’ve yet to witness anything like that. Two slices no less, it shouldn’t be that difficult, right? I mean, it is pie crust.
Beautiful photos nonetheless!
Woh! I was comparing your pics to my pics–yours is seriously raw.
I work a couple of blocks from the Pie Hole, and have tried 3 or 4 times to give them a chance to prove me wrong – please note that I have only tried the sweet pies and not the savory pies. Also, I have been baking pies for many years now so I know what it takes to make a good pie.
My first try was a lemon meringue pie, in which all of the lemon filling slid out before I could eat the pie, due to it’s liquidity (as opposed to the custard it should have been). The crust that time around was tough.
The second try was a piece of apple pie. The apples were sliced thin and tasty, but not cooked enough – a little too crispy, and the crust, again was tough, too thick and did not complement the apples.
Today I had what was called a Tarte Tatin on the menu. I’ve had stupendous tarte tatin before at a french restaurant I like on the sunset strip. A tarte tatin usually has thick sliced apples (1/4 apple per slice), caramelized using butter and sugar in a heavy skillet or tarte tatin pan, and covered with pastry, then baked. When the tarte is done baking, it is inverted onto a plate, the crust then residing under the soft and tasty caramelized apples.
Not the case with the Pie Hole tarte tatin. The apples were thin sliced, not very many of them, not caramelized, on an underdone yeasted dough that was too thick for a tarte tatin. More like a danish, but not even a good danish.
After my second experience at the Pie Hole with the apple pie, I wrote a note to Adrianna expressing what was good and what wasn’t working, but did not receive a response.
I would love to love the Pie Hole, but it’s just not working for me. I can get better pies at DuPar’s. It’s a huge disappointment, since the cost of the pie is $6 per slice for something that is almost inedible.
I wish them luck and hope they get a good pastry chef.
first off, i am so sad for those of you that have had not so wonderful experiences here. i am actually shocked by the raw crust. i have been to the pie hole many times and never had that experience. secondly, i have had many conversations with the owners, and i’m sure any of them would have gladly taken those pieces back for alternates, but also they want to hear if their pies fall short in such ways. i’ve had a couple of their chicken pot pies, which are yummy, but one time it was all chicken and gravy, and very little veggies. i told them the next time i was in and they were thankful that i spoke up.
if nothing else, you need to go back for the peanut butter with pretzel crust pie. it is THE best!