THE pie’s the limit for a Bolton chef whose next book is all about his favourite foodstuff.

And after sampling more than 600 pies and pasties while researching the new book — Pie Society —Tom Bridge reckons the best pasties and the best meat pies are from right here in his hometown, at Marie Walsh’s Ye Olde Pastie Shoppe in Churchgate.

He said: “Marie’s place is unbelievable, it is like a magician’s cave in the back.

Everything about them — the ingredients, the freshness, the fact that all the pasties are hand finished — are what makes them the best in Europe I would say.

“My mum and dad used to have the Gypsy’s Tent pub in Deansgate and they would come to Marie’s shop, pick up a tray of pasties and then pass them off as their own.

“You don’t see pasties handmade any more, everyone uses machines, but you cannot recreate what they do here using a machine.

Leicester has the best pork pies, Scotland has the best mutton pie but if you want the best meat pie and the best pastie then Marie’s is the place to get it.”

Self-confessed pie addict Tom, who once cooked for Frank Sinatra and David Niven, has spent months researching Pie Society, which will cover everything you need to know about pies but were afraid to ask.

He said: “It has got everything in—the history of pies, details of the different pies and how they got their name and there is plenty of pictures of Marie and her shop in there.”

Marie, who has owned the shop since the early 1960s, revealed she often posts pasties far and wide, and even has a customer who takes them back to Holland.

She said: “We send them to Cornwall, London and we even have someone who used to work at Reebok that now lives in Amsterdam and every time he comes over he takes a tray back with him.

“It’s very nice that we’re going to be in Tom’s book and, hopefully, it will spread the fame of the shop even wider.

“We go through literally hundreds of pies and pasties a day and we do thousands of pies for the trade market as well.”

In the past Tom has put together the world’s most expensive sandwich and now he and Marie are teaming up to produce the world’s most expensive pie, which he will auction off for the Derian House Children’s Hospice in Chorley.

He said: “We are keeping the recipe secret, but it will cost £1,700 to make.

“It is a joint project and it is something which has been in the pipeline for a while.

Hopefully it will raise lots of money for Derian House.”

Pie Society will hit the bookshelves in September.