The Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover’s Supreme Winner Has Just Been Announced

It's one of the year's most deliciously cheesy (and pickly) times.

The hot competition where chefs up and down the country cook their tastiest take on the classic toastie, The Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover, has crowned this year's supreme winner. 

Talented young chef Brooke Moore of Mount Maunganui’s Freeport with Cleaver & Co has won the hotly contested title—and snagged bragging rights for the North for the second time only in the competition’s history—with her impressive creation Surf, Turf & Smoke, Monsieur. 20-year-old Brooke is also the competition's first female winner.

A standout for competition judges, Freeport’s winning toastie featured housemade smoked lamb pastrami, smoked prawns, mozzarella, smoked cheddar sauce and McClure's Sweet & Spicy Pickles, sandwiched between locally-made BreadHead miso tahini sourdough and served with smoked aioli and pickle juice gel. The winning creation will be available for smashing until early August from 11.30am to close, seven days a week. Worth a trip in itself we'd say.

Brooke Moore and Freeport Cleaver & Co will now receive a bespoke Rikki Berger trophy and a year’s worth of McClure’s Pickles.

While participant numbers for 2022 were impressive, this year they were off the charts with a staggering 185 entries which were whittled down to 14 finalists from around the country including Cazador (Mt Eden), Good Day (Orakei), Lord Kitchener (Sandringham), Okere Falls Store & Craft Beer Garden (Rotorua) (2022 Supreme Winner), Hayes Common (Hamilton), Freeport Cleaver & Co (Tauranga), Best Burgers (Havelock North), Shining Peak Brewing (New Plymouth), Café Polo (Wellington), Huxleys (Wellington), BEERS Craft Brewery (Christchurch), Sprig & Fern Tavern (Nelson), The Fine Lion (Ashburton) and Roasted and Toasted (Lumsden).

For those needing a refresher, the competition rules are simple. Each toastie must be sandwiched between two slices of bread and able to be eaten by hand. The toasted sandwich must also contain cheese (or an acceptable vegan substitute) and pickles from McClure’s Pickles range. Everything else is up to the toastie maker’s imagination.

With the finalists selected by 40 judges around the country, the competition’s toastmaster royale Joe McClure hit the road to taste the finalists’ creations alongside head judge Kerry Tyack and Nick Brown from organisers Cook & Nelson. McClure applauded the “immense talent and creativity on show within New Zealand’s culinary scene”. Along with Freeport with Cleaver & Co’s winning entry, he said competition organisers would also like to acknowledge BEERS in Christchurch and Shining Peak Brewing in New Plymouth as deserving of special mention while head judge Kerry Tyack said the judging team had noticed a significant leap forward in terms of toastie innovation in 2023.

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