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A great number of years back, when I was fit, a keen cyclist and trained every weekend, there a existed a small shop in Hout Bay that sold pies of unimaginable diversity. It was called “The Pastryman” and was run by a friendly German guy and sometimes his wife.

What made this particular pie shop different from others was that here one could get puff adder, giraffe, porcupine, elephant and the ever popular crocodile pies. I must point out that we’re not talking about pies that merely resembled the animals they were named after, like a box of zoo biscuits but instead were made from the meat of the unfortunate animals which somehow managed to cross the Pastryman’s path.

Training for the Argus Tour entailed cycling from Montana, near Charlesville on the Cape Flats, all the way along the N2, getting onto the M3 near Mowbray and then all the way into Fish Hoek past St. James, Simon’s Town, Noordhoek, Sun Valley and then finally Hout Bay. Occasionally continuing through to Camps Bay via the old Chapman’s Peak (before you needed a permit to avoid being crushed by a falling boulder). This was fairly tough 100km which covered the majority of the distance the official Argus Tour covered and was by no means a picnic, that is unless it was lunch time.

I usually found myself in Hout Bay around 12:30, just in time for lunch which consisted a Pastryman pepper steak pie and a Coke. That was until I tried the crocodile. Yep, healthy eating indeed. Especially for someone putting in as much effort as I was in the saddle. Mind you, the crocodile wasn’t bad, I go as far as to say “it tasted like chicken”, which it really did but pepper steak remained a favourite.

Hout Bay locals would stop by all time during our little chats to pick up their orders or either porcupine, puff adder or an assortment of venison. Needless to say that he was quite popular and had clippings from his numerous appearances in different publications pinned up around the shop. People literally came from all over Cape Town to see what the legend of the Pastryman was all about. Tourists included his modest pie shop and bakery on their list must see places and would have paid for the opportunity to tell all their friends that they’d eaten elephant while in South Africa, let alone an elephant pie.

Then all of a sudden it all disappeared. Closed. Not to be heard from again.
No more tourists, no more crocodile pies, no more lunch. His wife had mysteriously disappeared and reports alleged that she may have ended up in a pie herself. An unsettling thought. As a result his business tanked and tour groups no longer stopped at his store. The legend had become infamous once more, but for different reasons this time, though they both included exotic pies.

The legend of The Pastryman is one that is mostly forgotten, even now, searching the Internet for information turns up nothing. It’s strange that such a prominent business and an even more well known personality could have disappeared like he never existed, let alone his wife.

Do you know what happened to the Pastryman? Or his wife? Ever stop in Hout Bay in the 90’s to grab a croc pie at The Pastryman? Hit us up in the comments.

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