Delicious 100: Hayden’s Pies, the Ulladulla pie shop that people drive five hours to visit

One of the state’s best pie shops has customers travelling exorbinant distances for a taste of these pastry goods, which include crocodile and peking duck fillings. Find out more.

A humble pie shop in Ulladulla has been named one of the state’s best pies, with devotees driving 5 hours to get their fix.

After working in kitchens in Sydney then around Europe, Hayden Bridger moved back to Australia to set up Hayden’s Pies with his mum and dad in one of their favourite holiday spots. Twenty years on, the bakery sells more than 3000 pies a day and employs 31 people to keep up with demand.

Hayden says the family never imagined what Hayden’s Pies would become when they first opened the doors.

“Every once in a while I’ll be driving past and will look at all the cars parked out the front and think ‘what the?!’. It’s amazing.”

Hayden's Pies in Ulladulla is among the best in the state in the delicious 100.

When it came to the pies Hayden says it was important to do things their way and not cut any corners. Including putting the hard yards in when it comes to making their incredible pastry.

“Puff pastry is a lot of hard work and takes a lot of attention to detail. When we first started using butter a lot of people in the baking industry told us we were idiots. That it’s too expensive and too hard to work with, especially in summer. And they’re right. But it’s so worth your while with the end product. We’d never, ever, ever, ever consider using anything else. There’s just no point to making puff pastry if you don’t use butter.”

Quality ingredients are also a must. Along with the Pepe Saya butter and Manildra flour from up the road in Nowra, the South Ulladulla Meat Market butcher two doors up supplies most of the meat, while the game meat comes from Canberra company Priam.

Hayden's Pies in Ulladulla

At Hayden’s the everyday pies include a traditional minced chuck steak in rich gravy, steak with lambs fry and bacon, Thai green chicken curry, and their ever popular butter chicken served with mint yoghurt. Then there are all of the special pies that appear on the menu including an alpaca con carne, wallaby stew and his daughter’s all time favourite pie, crocodile.

“It’s a great meat. It’s nothing too gamey. We just do it in a leak and garlic sauce. She’s loved it ever since she was six years old.”

Hayden’s Pies followers know if you’re lucky enough to be in town when they’re making Peking duck pies you should move fast.

One of the pies on offer is crocodile meat.

“Peking duck is always huge, but it’s a ridiculously time consuming pie to make. We started doing it back in the day when we had more time on our hands, but it takes about three days to make so it probably only gets two or three appearances a year.”

As for the ‘coat of arms’ pie with kangaroo and emu meat mingling in a red wine and garlic sauce, that one is a rarity these days but can still be made for special orders.

There’s also good news for coeliacs. Hayden’s has a separate, self-contained kitchen where gluten free pies are

made for daily lunches and available frozen to take home.

While his mum and dad retired 10 years ago, Hayden now runs the business with his wife Caroline and their team and has a strong following both on the South Coast and further afield.

“We get a lot of people walking into the shop saying, ‘We drove five hours to Ulladulla just to get a pie.’” Hayden laughs.

“They generally take home 20 or 30 to put in their freezer. And we hear stories of people shoving them in their bag and flying them back to England. They’re quite well travelled pies.”

For those who’d like to try this at home, Hayden also shares some of his recipes in the Home Cooking with Hayden book. Though no judgement if you’d rather make a road trip of it.

Hayden’s Pies has been named one of the five best pies in NSW in this year’s delicious. 100. View the full list and vote for your favourite now at delicious100.com.au.