You have probably never tasted an egg pie as ethereal as the one pastry chef Paige Retus is making at her new Pie Bakery & Cafe in Newton Center. This handsome slice has the look of quiche, and it's made from a similar eggy base, but Retus has managed to produce a custard so rich and so smooth and a pastry so flaky (it's actually completely baked on the bottom!), you have to wonder if the filling wasn't cooked separately in a water bath, then carefully slipped into a rich pie crust. In fact, says Retus, a combination of sour cream, milk, and eggs, baked "long and low" gives these results.
Egg pie ($5.50), might be flavored with spinach and mushrooms one day, ham the next, and it's just one of the outstanding pastries Retus is making for the food case. Her pasty of roast chicken with a little apple compote tucked into one end ($5.95) would make a Cornish miner's wife proud. (Pasty is pronounced with the same "a" as past, not paste.) English workers took pasties for their midday meal, and the clever women who made them often put the savory part of lunch on one side of this large flaky turnover, the sweet at the other. Pasty, says Retus, "is a forgotten item." She and business partner Ellen Kaplansky decided to bring it and other savory pastries back.
With its storefront windows, butter cream-colored walls, bright lighting, and white sails covering industrial elements on the ceiling, Pie Bakery is a most cheerful place. While you wait in line - this 3-week-old spot already has lines - you'll find yourself staring at the tall, three-paneled photograph of a meringue-topped pie shot by local photographer Christina Caturano. Retus, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America, made her name in Todd English's kitchen at Olives, where she worked for eight years. After that came blu, The Metropolitan Club, several consulting jobs in pastry kitchens around town, and then what she calls a "work-study" job at Flour Bakery + Cafe, where owner Joanne Chang put her in the kitchen so Retus could learn about the retail industry.
Meanwhile, she was talking to Kaplansky about the pie venture. A graduate of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, Kaplansky was running Elli's Downstairs Cafe in East Cambridge. Ryan Costigan, also a Cambridge School graduate, makes the savory elements on the menu and rounds out the team.
At the counter, the tiny, slim Kaplansky is a whirlwind, cheerful all day, undoubtedly delighted that things are flying out of the cases. If you want to sit down at one of the 24 seats or stools along a marble counter overlooking the kitchen, she'll ladle hearty onion soup ($4.95) into a deep white pottery bowl. It's topped with a square of melted cheese on focaccia, which sinks into the beefy broth and becomes the delightful stringy raft you're expecting. On another night, a deliciously dense beefy chili ($4.95) was garnished with a fine square of cornbread that wasn't too sweet.
No one overdoes sugar or salt here. While that means that sweets don't make your teeth ache, it sometimes means there's not enough salt in savory fillings. A potato knish the size of a small melon ($4.95) is a delightful carb fest of spud plus pastry (and enough knish for four), but the potato-onion mixture is desperate for salt. Same with shepherd's pie ($6.95), the meaty filling cleverly topped with sweet potato puree but too bland below. A roast chicken dinner ($15.95) consists of a flavorful half-bird, skin crisp but meat a little dry, accompanied by a generous salad with balsamic dressing and an outstanding flaky spinach and feta pie.
In a world where so many people shun carbs, the Retus-Kaplansky team has managed to draw crowds. But then, this is very appealing stuff. Even Dr. Atkins would find something to like.
