{"id":575985,"date":"2026-08-21T15:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/575985\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T15:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:26:13","slug":"black-betty-bbqs-hawkes-bay-toastie-wins-national-peoples-choice-in-the-great-new-zealand-toastie-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/575985\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Betty BBQ\u2019s Hawke\u2019s Bay toastie wins national people\u2019s choice in The Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were wondering about the recipe behind its success, its supremacy lay in 12-hour smoked brisket, caramelised onions, blue cheese, pickles, and buttery sourdough.<\/p>\n

Owner Daniel Meredith said the combination would please even people who don\u2019t like blue cheese. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of people come in that don\u2019t like blue cheese, that love that toastie,\u201d Meredith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the balance between the smoked brisket, the sweet onions and the sharp blue cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Smokey Blue collected 207 public votes and 2239 points, with customers rating each toastie they voted for.<\/p>\n

Competition organiser Deirdre Dawson said Black Betty led the People\u2019s Choice leaderboard throughout the event.<\/p>\n

The feedback was enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

One customer wrote, \u201cNever eaten anything like it. I\u2019ll think of it on my deathbed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another said the toastie had converted them from disliking blue cheese, while another called it \u201caddictive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meredith said head chef Blair Glenny came up with the winning combination, after the team trialled multiple versions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s quite a lot of engineering that goes into making a toastie,\u201d Meredith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the brisket is definitely the star of the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BlackBlack Betty BBQ owner Daniel Meredith (left) and head chef Blair Glenny with the Smokey Blue toastie and the Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover People\u2019s Choice trophy. Photo \/ Rafaella Melo<\/p>\n

The onion jam and blue cheese sauce are made in-house, while the sourdough is sourced locally. The $25 toastie is served with crinkle-cut fries.<\/p>\n

Black Betty BBQ has been entering the competition for several years and previously reached the finals in 2021<\/a> with its Cornstar toastie, which became a permanent menu item.<\/p>\n

Winning the People\u2019s Choice Award left Meredith feeling \u201cproud\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see a small business from Hawke\u2019s Bay on the number one leaderboard of a nationwide competition \u2026 it\u2019s cool, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black Betty usually changes its special each week, but Smokey Blue appears to be here to stay.<\/p>\n

The only casualty may be the old Cornstar, which could make way for its newly crowned replacement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were wondering about the recipe behind its success, its supremacy lay in 12-hour smoked brisket, caramelised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1561,283645,153037,7022,138,6745,16773,1976,78,3556,117,111,139,69,21041,26592,223,283646,6202,80],"class_list":["post-575985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bay","tag-bbqs","tag-betty","tag-black","tag-business","tag-choice","tag-great","tag-hawkes","tag-in","tag-national","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peoples","tag-takeover","tag-the","tag-toastie","tag-wins","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}