Apple Pie : PIES: We Pick the Best

To be honest, as far as I’m concerned if it isn’t chocolate, it isn’t dessert. Although I’ve tasted a couple of tartes tatin that caught my fancy, I can’t even fathom ordering a piece of apple pie if anything chocolate is on the menu.

This admittedly biased opinion made it impossible for me to proclaim any apple pie as my favorite. I opted, instead, to present one from the Apple Pan, a Los Angeles institution since 1947, for tasting by our panel.

Martha Gamble, daughter of Ellen and Alan Baker, who established the restaurant, said the apple pie recipe was developed by her mother and grandmother and has been virtually unchanged in the past 43 years. Ninety pies are baked fresh daily on the premises; 55 of them are apple. “It’s definitely our biggest seller,” Gamble said. Pippin apples are preferred for the filling, but when Pippins are unavailable, Granny Smith apples are substituted. Vegetable shortening is used in the crust.

In the restaurant, the pie is served warm, with spiced apple juice poured over at the last minute. The sauce is packaged separately for take-out orders, with instructions to warm both the juice and the pie before serving. Our tasters applauded the pie’s not-too-sweet flavor, but judged the filling as slightly bland. The crust was superior to all of those from pie stores and the frozen varieties, but it was not as flaky as some tasted.

A couple of tasters summed it up this way: “This seems to be one of those pies that just tastes better when you eat it right in the restaurant.”

The Apple Pan, 10801 W. Pico Blvd., West Los Angeles, (213) 475-3585.