Panhead Custom Ales - El Chupacabra (The Blood Sucker)

Description: Slow-smoked pulled New Zealand lamb, salsa verde and caramelised shallot patty stuffed with beetroot and Drunken Nanny goat cheese sauce in a seasoned charcoal savoury churro bun topped with queso drip, pico de gallo, sour cream and blue tortilla chips, with duck fat confit agria hand-cut chips and hot sauce.

Boneface Brewing Co. - Shrimply Irresistible

Deliciously punny burger names aside, Boneface draws diners near and far with its low and slow, tender, smoked meats. Pair this pork bellied burger with a layer of crispy crumbed prawn patty, and you’re in textural burger heaven. 

Description: Prawn katsu patty with house smoked pork belly, sesame Kewpie slaw, Sriracha mayonnaise and Japanese-style BBQ sauce in a Zaida's milk bun, with spicy prawn crackers.

Craft Beer & Pizza - Mousetrap

Two words: fried cheese. Add a Marmite bun, and you have a Kiwi classic snack in burg form with a bonus addition of prosciutto.   

Description: Fried Kāpiti Kahikatea camembert with prosciutto, lettuce and spicy plum sauce in a Zaida's Marmite milk bun, with sea salt potato crisps.

Dough Bakery - French Onion Classic

One of the world’s most indulgently rich and cheesy soups dished up in the form of a burger. Dough Bakery is also notorious for its indulgent donuts, which has inspired their Cocktail Wellington entry, Jam Doughnut - housemade doughnut-cream vodka, vanilla milk, strawberry jam and whipped cream, accompanied by mini sugar doughnuts. (and it also comes in a non-alc version for the non-drinkers/kiddies!). Yes, this milkshake brings all the burgs to the yard, so pair them up! 

Description: Aro Brewing oat stout braised beef cheek with caramelised onion and bacon jam, and emmental and truffled dijonnaise in a housemade parmesan potato bun, with chive potato croquettes.

Dirty Burger Upper Hutt - Upper Class Bogan

Do as the locals do and boag up your burg at Dirty Burger with the Upper Class Bogan. We’re not quite sure what bogans, upper class or otherwise, have to do with this Korean-inspired burger, but the spicy-meets-piquant flavours are enough to draw us in. 

Description: 200g Primestar beef patty with refried Korean-style pork belly, chijeu, onions, pickles, spicy Korean BBQ sauce and gochujang mayonnaise in a toasted brioche bun.

Greytown Hotel - The Top Pub - The Lechon

As delicious as we’re sure it is, this isn’t your nana’s pork roast. Unless she’s from the Philippines, because The Lechon is based on traditional Filipino roast pig. It’s oh-so-tender, and we promise the roasted sweet potato skewer and salted caramel sauce will linger in your food memory banks forever. 

Description: Sliced roast pork belly and shoulder in a soy sauce, garlic, fresh ginger, lemongrass and Thai basil marinade with grilled Parkvale mushrooms, Philippine-style coleslaw and pork crackling in a Clareville Bakery Parkvale mushroom dust brioche bun, with roasted sweet potato skewer and salted caramel sauce.

Saint Sebastian - The Warren Maxwell a.k.a. Home, Land and Sea

Who can resist a well executed, classic burger with a fancy twist? Saint Sebastian serves up its fancy twist in the form of an umami dollop of paua foie gras, and it will blow your mind. For a side of bouge, order Saint Sebastian’s Cocktail Wellington, Lavender Immortelle, a Lavender Abbey lavender-infused Reid + Reid native gin, Lillet Blanc, lemon and absinthe. 

Description: Beef patty with Tora Collective paua foie gras, American cheese, housemade pickle, onion and special sauce in a Clareville Bakery black truffle infused milk bun, with hand cut agria nori fries.

Café Medici - Gung Ho

Cafe Medici knows what it's doing when it comes to Burger Wellington. It won best Burger Wellington Burger & Beer Match in 2014 and won Best Festival Burger in 2019. If that burger pedigree doesn’t pull you in, we don’t know what will (other than all these other burgers on the list, obviously). 

Description: Korean-style fried chicken with shaved cabbage, pickled daikon, pickled cucumber, gochujang sauce and housemade kimchi aioli in a Clareville Bakery sesame brioche bun, with spicy gochugaru fries.

Goodtimes Food - The Thai Pancake

Every year, there’s always a Burger Wellington that launches the great, annual “But is it a burger?” discussion into the stratosphere. The Thai Pancake is the Wairarapa’s “But is it a burger?” 2021, but when it’s this delicious, who are we to resolve this ongoing burgistential debate? 

Description: Scotty’s Meats chorizo beef patty with pickles, Remutaka Pass Creamery Smoked Chilli Harvati in a housemade Thai roti bun topped with housemade mayonnaise and herbs.

Vixen Burger - The Remutaka Roast

Vixen Burger serves up mutton dressed up as mutton, but believe us when we say this mutton is wearing its Sunday’s best and werking it down the runway with all the trimmings of a delicious, home-cooked Sunday roast.  

Description: Eketāhuna Country Meats mutton patty with Remutaka Pass Creamery minted havarti, hazelnut-crusted roast butternut, braised silverbeet, Mela apple cider vinegar and quince jelly and mayonnaise in a Wairarapa olive oil brioche bun.