Growing up in Australia, if you found yourself in a pie shop you were probably having a good time. It’s that kind of nostalgia that Aaron Donato, co-owner of Footscray’s Pie Thief, wants to tap into. “It’s always associated with a happy memory. You don’t look back at pie shop memories and think, ‘Geez, that was a bad time’,” Donato tells Broadsheet.

The shop is tiny, with just a few seats, but it's mostly geared towards takeaway. It has a bright colour palette of aqua, pink and yellow. Painted on the front counter is the official Pie Thief mascot, a misty-eyed little monster gazing up at the pies passed across the marble countertop. The chef (and other co-owner) is Scott Blomfield, who worked as head chef at Mighty Boy and Grub Fitzroy, and as chef de partie at Supernormal before heading overseas to spend time cooking in France and Mexico. Returning to Melbourne, Blomfield became a regular at Donato’s other project, Bar Josephine (right next door to Pie Thief). The pair bonded over a love of pies. “I travel suburbs for pies and I’ve always had this weird pipe dream that I want to open a pie shop. But I’m not a chef,” says Donato. “When I said that over a beer, Scotty said, ‘Me too,’ and I went, ‘Oh well, I guess we gotta’.”