The Bay of Plenty region has trumped the nation in the hotly contested Great NZ Toastie Takeover competition again, with Ōkere Falls awarded the 2024 Supreme Winner with its “polarising” entry, and another eatery taking home the People’s Choice Award. You’ll find the best toasted sandwich in the country 25 minutes out of Rotorua. For the second time in three years, Ōkere Falls Store has won the supreme award at the Great NZ Toastie Takeover .
“We really, really weren’t expecting to win it again,” chef Rich Johns tells the Herald, but it feels “awesome”. They were blown away by the calibre of entries this year. “I was like, man, we’re - we’re not going to even get close”.
The competition is a chance to be creative, but they thought their 2024 entry was “too polarising” to have a chance. However, “Figgy In The Middle” ultimately beat 169 other sandwiches from around New Zealand to win the big prize. Talking the Herald through the winning entry, he explains they started with “incredible” sourdough from Rotorua bakery Pantry D’or; there’s a structurally critical layer of Swiss cheese, which acts as a buffer for all the “wet” ingredients - things like dill-pickle cheesecake whip, sliced figs, rocket, blue cheese and “a drizzle of chili honey, which just makes it all pop”.
And there’s that all-important crunch too, with more McClure’s pickles (a mandatory ingredient), streaky bacon by Vandy’s and toasted walnuts. “It’s like a cheeseboard in a sandwich,” Johns explains (it goes very nicely with a glass of red wine), saying it was a one-and-done creation whipped up the day before entries closed..
