Albany bakery’s potato top judged New Zealand’s best pie of 2025
The best pie in the country is officially a potato top.
Rosedale Bakery & Cafe, in the Auckland suburb of Albany, has been declared the winner of the 2025 Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Awards.
Created by bakery owner Samraksmey So, it is only the second potato top pie to take out the top prize in the history of the competition.
So’s creation isn’t a stock standard mince and mash medley. Instead it has both a potato top and potato middle - comprised of a swirled potato top with a core of fondant-style cooked potatoes finished in au gratin layers.
So developed the recipe after seeing a dish of French-style layered potatoes in a magazine, explaining “We take the time to fry the potatoes and then we put them on a tray with butter, garlic and rosemary and we bake them off. We cut them with a round cutter after baking and put them in the pie and bake again, and they look like a crispy outside.”
So told Herald NOW this morning the secret to a supreme pie is supreme ingredients saying whether it’s the mince inside to the flour used to make the casings, they “use everything that is good quality” when baking their perfect pastries.
Celebrity chef judge Nici Wickes said the potato pie was “a clear winner” during the blind tasting process last week.
“It surprised me because it’s one of the more usual categories and yet really innovative.”
So said he spent a year tweaking and perfecting the recipe after winning a highly commended in the potato top pie category last year and intends on creating something new to enter into the 2026 awards.
This isn’t the bakery’s first brush with glory, in 2023 they were awarded a silver award for their mince and cheese entry in the pie awards, and took home the prize for best sausage roll in the country.
2025 New Zealand Bakels Supreme Pie Award Gold Winners
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Bacon & Egg: Sean Vo, Levain Artisan Bakery, Blockhouse Bay Auckland
Mince & Gravy: Sopheap Long, Euro Patisserie, Torbay, Auckland
Mince & Cheese: Michael Gray, Nada Bakery, Wellington
Potato Top: Samraksmey (Sam) So, Rosedale Bakery & Café, Albany, Auckland
Steak & Gravy: Sok Heang Nguon, Taste Bakery and Roast, Henderson, Auckland
Steak & Cheese: Sok Keo, Milldale Bakery, Wainui, Auckland
Chicken & Vegetable: Mengheng (Jason) Hay, Richoux Patisserie, Ellerslie, Auckland
Gourmet Meat: Buntha Meng, Wild Grain Bakery, Silverdale, Auckland
Vegetarian: Sopheap Long, Euro Patisserie, Torbay, Auckland
Café Boutique: Ellie Linton-Brown, Main Street Café, Huntly
Commercial/Wholesale: Dad’s Pies, Silverdale, Auckland.
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Poll: If we want to reduce speeding, what do you think actually changes driver behaviour? 🛻🚨🚓
In the Post's article on speeding penalties, the question is asked whether speeding fines are truly about road safety, or are they just a way to boost revenue for the Crown?
What do you think? Should speeding motorists receive speeding fines or demerit points?
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37% The sting of a fine (Money talks!)
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DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
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