A lamb burger created by One80 at Copthorne Hotel Wellington Oriental Bay has won the Burger Wellington competition, the second year in a row the restaurant has taken the top prize.

The winning burger Nawabi Galouti, created by Chef Chetan Pangam, follows last year’s winning entry, the Goan Chicken Ros Pao burger. This is the first time in Burger Wellington’s 15-year history that a restaurant has won twice in a row.

So, what is it about One80 that makes its burgers so darn delicious? It was a lot of things, Chef Pangam said -- time, effort, and lots of love among them -- but teamwork was the main thing. “A lot of lot of hard work, consistency, and just good, good flavours.”

While this year’s theme was ‘play with your food,’ Chef Pangam said he didn’t want to lose track of the importance of the actual ingredients in the meal. He said using local suppliers was a huge part of the restaurant’s culture, and a huge part of their success.

The lamb provided by Lumina had been fed a diet of chicory and clover for 35 days, so the burger came with a punnet of chicory on the plate for customers to smell and eat.

As nod to his Indian heritage, Chef Pangam said all his food was a spin on modern Indian cuisine, with flavour and taste being the key pillars. The burger had been inspired by the Awadhi Nawabs, he said, who lived in Northern India in the 17th century. They were known for smoking cigars, eating rich food, and having no teeth, he said.

As One80 won the competition the previous year, Chef Pangam was allowed to create a Garage Project beer. The beer, called Susegad, was paired with this year’s burger.

Garage Project head brewer Mr Pete Gillespie said the beer had paired perfectly with the burger. “Pulling off a win two years in a row is an amazing achievement, especially given the incredible level of quality and creativity we’ve seen across the board in this competition. Congratulations to the team at One80.”