Exeter’s Best Pasty

The Tab’s resident food expert Ryan Barrell takes a look at Exeter’s pasty outlets.

| UPDATED

It’ll be summer soon (hopefully), and nothing says summer in Devon to me like grabbing a steak pasty and a pint of scrumpy. There’s a huge selection of pasty shops in Exeter, so here’s a round-up to help you decide where to go to fulfill your meaty munchies.

Gregg’s – £1.85
Starting with an obvious choice here, the bakery chain offers up a cheap but disappointing effort. While it was very beefy, the pastry was hard and dry, and it was served up cold. It’s an acceptable option on a budget, but don’t expect too much.

A Gregg’s Pasty

Ginster’s – £1.99+
Don’t even bother.

Chunk – £2.20 in the Kitchen Deli
Your campus kitchen offers up Chunk pasties at a good price, and they’re nice and warm. They’re even cheaper than the cold equivalent in the Marketplace. The meat to vegetable ratio is near-perfect, and the pastry is good, but could be better. A definite contender for Exeter’s best, and perfect for a campus lunch.

Shaul’s – £2.50
I had high hopes for this Sidwell Street bakery, but sadly I was let down. The flavour was odd, and there was very little meat, surrounded in a hard, unpleasant pastry. This is one to avoid.

Real Cornish Pasty Co. – £2.95
Situated near the Cathedral, down one of Exeter’s many small side streets, the Real Cornish Pasty Co. delivers the most expensive of this round-up. If you can’t spare a few extra pennies, this might not be the place for you, but the pastry was delicious, flakey, and moist. The filling lived up to expectation as well, with a hot, heaping helping of high-quality beef.

Oggy Oggy – £2.40
This was a confusing flavour. The spicing used by the Guildhall-adjacent pasty shop makes the first bite distinctly different from any other pasty in town. It was, however, very enjoyable. With perfect pastry surrounding the extremely moist filling, it was easy to forget the strangeness of the spices. While this is not a traditional take on the usual beef & potato pastry, it is definitely worth a try.

So, which one was best? A very difficult choice. While the Oggy Oggy pasty was in the middle of the price range and very tasty, the crown has to go to the Real Cornish Pasty Co. for their scrumptious, comforting, traditional pasties. It might seem a bit pricey compared to the others, but its totally worth it and goes great with a pint of Old Rosie.