The regional cuisine mined by Manhattan’s chefs for inspiration has headed south –- look to the glut of Aussie-themed eateries that have popped up across the city in the last three years (most recent: Fashion District bar-restaurant called, um, The Australian) All of them offer a riff on the Aussie answer to a hamburger, manly staple the meat pie.

But back home, cafes go one better: all-pie-all-the-time fast food spots that specialize in riffs on that meat-and-pastry belly-filler.

National chain Jesters -– “We’re serious about Pies” –- boasts killer espresso with its beef stroganoff pies, and outside Sydney, a curried beef (yes, beef) delicacy (indelicately) called the Taj Ma Hal. Cheapie Sydney-only chainlet Pie Face started up in 2003: it offers fancier recipes like spinach sundried tomato and ricotta or Mexican vegetables injected with cheese -– a standard one’s AU$4.25 standard or a so-called stack smothered in mashed potatoes and gravy is a couple of bucks more.

But Jesters and Pieface with their funky furniture and flouncy baristas can’t compete with Sydney’s dockside classic, Harry’s Café de Wheels.

Tucked away in working class Woolloomoloo (next to the old W hotel, now the Blue), it’s been serving real pies to wharf workers and those who love ‘em since 1938. Sure, it offers a seafood pastry and hotdogs (introduced for homesick American sailors during the war, apparently) but real men order the classic: a meat pie, drowning in dayglo green mushy peas, soft mashed potato and thick gravy.

— Mark Ellwood