2025 Supreme Winner Announced

Mr Samraksmey (Sam) So, owner of Rosedale Bakery & Café in Auckland will be smiling from ear to ear today knowing his love of reading food magazines has won him the 27^th Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Award. 
His stunning pie – a swirled potato top with a centre core of fondant-style cooked potatoes finished in au gratin layers that he’d developed the recipe for after seeing a dish of French-style layered potatoes in a magazine. 

Sam explains: “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.”

The innovative potato concept took a bit of working out, says Sam. With his staff inspired by western foods and a friend who had worked as a chef in a five-star hotel, they all began tasting the potato core and adding their suggestions. Meanwhile Sam kept adjusting the recipe until everyone agreed it was perfect. 

Sam, who owns two bakeries in Albany, Auckland, bought his first bakery in 2019 and started really making a name for himself when he won a silver award for his mince and cheese entry in the 2023 Bakels NZ Pie Awards. It was his golden pastry sausage roll though that secured his baking credibility when he won the Bakels Legendary Sausage Roll competition in the same year. The taste of success motivating him on towards perfection and the Supreme win.