He served up pork pies, very good dumplings (without starter) and duck (9)
I believe the answer is:
pinocchio
'he served up pork pies very' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether it can be defined by this definition.
'good dumplings without starter and duck' is the wordplay.
'good' becomes 'pi' (I've seen this in other clues).
'dumplings' becomes 'gnocchi' (I've seen this before).
'without starter' means to remove the first letter.
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'duck' becomes 'o'.
'gnocchi' with its initial letter taken off is 'nocchi'.
'pi'+'nocchi'+'o'='PINOCCHIO'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pinocchio that I've seen before include "dishonest puppet" , "Fairytals puppet who became a boy" , "Wooden puppet, brought alive" , "Nose-growing puppet" , "Puppet with growing nose" .)