2024 🥧 Tour
Review no 53
Vilis Pie’s
(Adelaide SA)
At Fine Foods in Melbourne this year I had the opportunity to meet the National Sales Manager of Vili’s Cafe De Vili’s 🥧’s.
During this meeting Ben invited me to come to Adelaide to take the tour of the Vilis factory and review there 🥧’s. Reviewing one of the biggest 🥧 manufacturers in 🇦🇺 wasn’t on my radar until I did some research into Vilis 🥧’s and the background story of one incredible man. With that in mind I jumped at the opportunity to get down to Adelaide and try these 🥧’s.
The Vili’s story of success from humble beginnings to an iconic South Australian business is one that tugs on the heart strings. Vili Milisit’s father arrived in Adelaide in 1956, escaping the Hungarian revolution, with all his belongings in one old suitcase tied together with a belt. Survival was paramount, education was unnecessary. Both Vili’s parents had been chefs in Hungary, so creating food was already a seed that had taken hold and was starting to grow. As soon as Vili was old enough, he went to work at a local bakery at the ripe age of 14 to help support his family. With hard work, commitment and passion, Vili and Rosemary, both life and business partners, established a business that would become one of South Australia’s great success stories, distributing nationally and exporting to 24 countries globally.
This pie juggernaut now employees over 360 people and two things clearly stood out from my factory tour. The first was the quality control in this place. I was totally blown away by its policies and procedures. The factory has some of the best equipment I’ve seen, but there is still a huge reliant on the human factor to perform various duties. Secondly the amount of long-term staff that are employed here is quite remarkable. There is a real family environment here and that is something Vili installed very early on.
The stories about Vili is legendary and so was his work ethic. Vili worked 5-7 days a week, alongside his staff, showing the same passion and care for his products that he did almost 50 years ago. Even when his health was failing, he was still in the bakery rolling dough or serving food at the café during lunch and chatting with his customers.
Sadly, Vili passed away on the 26th March 2021 and was honered with a state funeral. Nearly everyone I spoke to during my visit had nothing but praise for this incredible man. Although he’s now gone, his legacy continues with his children and grandchilden taking active roles in the business.
The tour of the factory was one of the best experiences I’ve done since starting my own pie journey 4 years ago. After viewing thousands and thousands of 🥧’s come off the production line, it was time for me to get into the café smash a few myself.
Once I was in the 24 hour Cafe I was quite surprised at the amount of flavors on the menu, 17 in total. But there was only one that I wanted to try !!! Actually I smashed about 10. The one I decided to review was one of Vilis favourites and that was “Hungarian Goulash” This was a family receipe and OMG it smelt terrific.
🥧 THE REVIEW 🥧
1. Value for Money – $7 represents good value for a 🥧 of this size. Although not that deep in the depth department, the diameter was more than acceptable. Yes $7 is creeping up there for a 🥧 of this size but nothing outrageous. 7.5/10
2. Meat/Fill Ratio – Not a massive 🥧 in depth, but it was totally full as was all the 🥧’s I sampled that day. In terms of meat to fill ratio, you couldn’t squeeze any more into this 🥧. 10/10
3. Flavour – For a massed produced 🥧 the flavour in this one was sensational. This was a genuine Hungarian recipe containing chunky steak, onion, potato, and red capsicum. Cooked with paprika powder, although it had a little kick to it, it wasn’t that spicy. Seriously every bite was beautiful as you could taste every ingredient which was a huge bonus. It’s little wonder why this is one of Vilis most successful flavors. Great job 9.5/10
4. Pastry – The pastry actually surprised me and in a good way. Wrapped in a plastic bag I was expecting the bottom bake to be very soft and incredibly sweaty but it wasn’t. Yes, it was soft, but the bottom bake thickness was perfect and the stability of this 🥧 was spot on. A smidge under baked on the bottom while the top bake and thickness were terrific. Shape and color also first class and pastry flavour was great. 8/10
5. Serving Temperature – Perfect serving temp, no issues 10/10
Overall Rating
🥧🥧 45/50 🥧🥧
Easily the best mass produced 🥧 I’ve tasted. I didn’t know what to expect as I’d never had a Vilis 🥧 before, but it exceeded all my expectations. For me the flavor in this 🥧 was beautiful in fact so good I had another one straight after just to be sure. The pastry really surprised me, the bottom was soft however the stability was spot on. The pastry had a beautiful flavor to it and the 🥧 was completely full. Just to clarify the 🥧 I reviewed was straight out of the warmer and not made for my specific visit. Excellent job guys and I’m so glad I chose this particular flavor.
To the entire Milisits family, Ben, Peter, and rest of the Vili’s crew a huge thanks for giving me one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. This was much more than a review it was a learning experience about one man’s hard work, family values and a passion for 🥧’s. That hard work and vision has turned into a multi million dollar 🥧 family business and I emphasize the word FAMILY !!! I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to sit down with the Milisits family and hear countless stories about a remarkable father, grandfather, employer and all round
champion human. As the man himself once famously said “If it hasn’t got a V it ain’t me”