Codfish and potatoes ... in a pie?

Café 4 has put a new spin on an old Bermuda favourite.

The restaurant has placed the Island’s traditional breakfast under pastry and formed it as a 6” pie.

The dish is the result of a cook-off that took place earlier this month in the Queen Street eatery. General manager Andreas Detzer came up with the winning recipe.

“Every week we go through ideas of how we can give better service to our customers at Café 4,” Mr Detzer said. “One of our popular items is different types of pies. So to keep it interesting, we went through our ideas and I suggested we do a codfish and potato pie.”

Everyone didn’t immediately love the idea, he admitted.

“I said, don’t be negative. Let’s put it out there and see.”

Fourways’ executive chef Tommy Poh took the challenge to the staff.

“He went to the kitchen and threw out the competition,” said Mr Detzer, a former chef who remains passionate about cooking. “We tried six different pies and picked a winner. They had some really fantastic pies; everything from local flavours to Asian flavours. It was very interesting but at the end [Tommy and I] said we wanted to put our part in it as well. We made a couple and decided on mine.”

A “democratic vote” was taken before he was declared the winner, Mr Detzer insisted. He gave the cash prize to the winning chef in the first round.

“I don’t normally get involved in cooking — we have the best chef on the Island — but I know what happens in the dining room [during Fourways’ brunches]. I can see people as they plate their food. I know how Bermudians like their codfish and potatoes. I said whatever they put on their plate has got to go in the pie and that’s what won. It was just a burning sensation that I had to go in there and I have to participate.

“The idea for me, I think, completed the Bermuda triangle. We started with codfish breakfast, then codfish cakes and now codfish pie. I honestly don’t know if anybody tried it before. It’s similar to a codfish cake on a bun. I thought it’d be much easier as a pie and it really worked out well.”

At the moment the pies are available at Café 4 although they’ll soon be offered at the MarketPlace.