Best pies in Melbourne: Bill Fuller Mentone Bakery wins national comp

IT’S taken Bill Fuller nearly 70 years to crack the big gold at the Great Aussie Pie Competition, but he’s finally done it.

IT’S taken Bill Fuller nearly 70 years to crack the big gold at the Great Australian Pie Competition.

“I’ve had lots of silver medals but never a gold one. Until now,” the Mentone baker said.

It was his chicken carbonara pie that finally broke the drought in the competition’s gourmet poultry category.

“It started off as a chicken carbonara pastie but a few years back I decided to turn it into a pie,” Mr Fuller said.

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Mr Fuller also took silver in the chunky category for his chunky beef pie, and a bronze in the mince category for his beef mince pie.

But the 82-year-old almost didn’t enter this year’s competition.

“I was just back at work after heart surgery and my family suggested that maybe I should sit this one out,” he said.

“I didn’t listen. I always enter so why stop now?

“Obviously I’m pretty glad I made the effort.”

Bill Fuller makes and bakes on his Mentone premises.

r Fuller has been baking since he was 14.

“It was 1949, the end of World War II and my father was demobbed at Hastings,” he said.

“We ended up staying there for 12 months and I got a job with the local baker.

“I kept going with the trade when we moved down this way.”

Mr Fuller married Betty Mayes in 1960 and for the next 45 years the Cheltenham couple ran several businesses including liquor stores, a lottery agency and a number of bakeries.

Today he is the sole baker for Mentone Bakery.

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“We’ve had apprentices in the past which was good. You learn from them,” he said.

“My late wife Betty used to work in the bakery with me. She looked after the shop. And boy was she popular. The customers loved her.”

Despite some recent “health hiccups” Mr Fuller has no plans to hang up his apron.

“The days are too long for that,” he said.

“I had plans with Betty, but she left us in 2005 and now I just like to keep busy.”

That means rising at 2am most mornings to bake his award-winning pies.

“I pace myself now. The girls in the shop organise lunch for me and I rest in the afternoons.”

And on a rare day off Mr Fuller heads to other bakeries to sample his competitors wares.

“There are a few good bakers in Kingston,” he said.

“I like to taste test what they are up to.”

Mentone Bakery is at 99 Mentone Parade, Mentone.

Other Kingston bakeries to win medals for their pies include Ivan’s Pies, Braeside, Temptation Bakeries, Chelsea Heights, Thrift Park Pies and Cakes, Mentone and Molly Dene, Bentleigh.

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