Has Wellington On a Plate become too expensive for its own good?
Saturday, 18 July 2026
Wellington On a Plate began with $25 lunches designed to fill empty tables during hospitality’s toughest months. Today, the food festival features luxury events costing hundreds of dollars, prompting questions over whether WOAP has moved too far from its affordable beginnings. Julie Jacobson reports.
Lunch and a glass of Wairarapa wine for $25 or $35. Lunch at Martin Bosley's for $35? yes please…
But that was then. This is now; a glass of Royal family warranted champagne followed by a luxurious 5-course degustation with paired wines with a $345 price tag, a welcome drink, canapés, a five-course dinner and five glasses of matched wine for $275, or perhaps canapés, an oyster station, a three-course dinner, one cocktail, and a glass of champagne for $155.
Visa Wellington On a Plate began in 2009 off the back of the Global Financial Crisis, as a way to pull the punters in what is one of the hospitality sector’s leanest periods. Diners could sate their appetites with a fixed-price meal and accompanying beverage at some of the city’s top restaurants.
But as costs continue to rise and margins shrink to near-unsustainable levels there are some querying whether the event has out-lived its usefulness and only adds to the pressure the hospitality sector is already under.
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Others contend that as spending habits change the now month-long food festival has out-priced most pockets and that it has lost its way, becoming little more than an expensive burger showcase with an extra helping of over the curated events targeted at the well-off.
They argue that as the event has evolved into something far larger than a celebration of local culinary talent, and organisers bring in high-profile international chefs questions linger about whether local talent is being overlooked.
The original WOAP began with just 12 events and 35 participants.
Veteran food writer and Cuisine magazine restaurant reviewer David Burton remembers the inaugural fortnight well. Dine Wellington - where some of the city's top-class eateries, including Boulcott St Bistro, The White House, Martin Bosley's Bisque on Bolton, Shed Five and Matterhorn offered lunch and a glass of Wairarapa wine for $25 or $35 - was the signature event.
In 2018 there were 125 burgers on the menu. By 2022 there were more than 250 venues participating from across the Wellington region. WOAP today features 99 events and 245 burgers, with venues paying a fee of between $300 and $1200 depending on seating capacity and days open to be involved.
All fees go into directly promoting the festival.Tiered marketing packages and an early bird discount were introduced last year. The Level 1 marketing package provided the same level of marketing support that participating venues have received in previous years.
Higher-tier packages, which offer additional exposure across festival marketing can be added, but come at a cost - believed to be between $1000 to $6000.
Said Burton: “With 344 burgers and events this year, it’s clear that restaurateurs now feel they can’t afford not to be in the running for Burger Wellington,” Burton said, “hence the inclusion of Italian, Indonesian, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese restaurants, none of which are traditionally associated with hamburgers.
“In addition to the usual low-end and mid-range eateries, we are now finding high-end restaurateurs who ought to know better [than participating].”
As a low-end convenience food to be eaten on the run, a hamburger was designed to be bitten into and eaten as a single mouthful, where the palate can discern a maximum of only three or four different flavours at once, he said.
“Stuffing as many as 11 ingredients between a bun creates a sort of gastronomic cacophony, like having the NZSO play Mozart while AC/DC thump out Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”
Burger Wellington had become so competitive chefs were “falling over themselves” to be more creative than their peers, “hence the need to ferment their ketchup and salt their chips with ash - a well known carcinogen,” he said.
“Considering that restaurants typically operate on a single figure profit margin, why should they feel compelled to pay to compete with hundreds of others for a title for which there can be only one overall winner? It seems to me the restaurants are being held to ransom now.”
All things local
A hospitality operator, who the Post agreed not to name, felt WOAP had strayed from what it originally set out to do, which was to showcase all things local.
They did not take part because of that. “We’re a restaurant that all year round focuses on unique and different and local. It didn’t make sense to participate in something that is no longer focused on that wider concept.”
The event had become too commercial and corporatised, with international “stars” brought in to boost the hype. “It’s a marketing agency that promotes the businesses that pay it to market them. It's not a promotion of Wellington.”
Meanwhile the evolution from good deal to potentially extravagant outing has prompted one café to pitch an “affordable” burger. At just $10 L’affare’s smash burger is less than a third of the price of many of the others on this year’s menu and $35 less than the most expensive, The Jetty’s paua-pattied Talk of the Tide.
Says brand co-ordinator Charlie Rose-Zondag: “We were planning to do a big burger, something really tall and expensive with fancy ingredients. But then we just though, nah, let's just do something super simple.”
Like the Welsh Dragon Bar’s 2022 $9.76 “cost of living burger” L’affare’s offering was a nod to everyone doing it tough, including those in the hospo community.
“We wanted to do a solid for the city. Wellington On a Plate is a really important part of the hospitality scene, but right now almost everyone's having a hard time. We’ve all felt the bite so it was about not making anything harder than it needs to be.
“Plus the theme [for WOAP] this year is word of mouth, and the more that we thought about it, the more we kind of thought what’s something that collectively people can feel connected through…”
At about $7 in 2009 currency the “Get Smashed” burger‒ a smashed beef patty, with cheese, pickles, and burger sauce in a brioche bun, plus fries‒was something everybody could afford, Rose-Zondag said.
Accessible and vibrant
Despite eye‑catching price tags on some headline events, WOAP director Beth Brash emphasises the festival is as much about accessibility and vibrancy as indulgence, at the same time stressing that its ever‑evolving format is shaped in close consultation with the hospo community rather than imposed on it.
“We are always checking in with them. I never ever want people to feel beholden to it. They don't have to take part. I know Burger Wellington doesn’t work for everyone, and it shouldn’t. I think there is opportunity for some other way that we can also celebrate great hospitality, and it is something that we are looking into, based off feedback from the industry.
“I really appreciate businesses talking to us about what’s working for them and what’s not, because that can help influence how we evolve.”
While acknowledging people only had so much disposable income and that there were genuine concerns about affordability, she stood behind “absolutely every single one of the events.” Comparatively they were no more expensive than a big act concert ticket.
“There are definitely events that are up there [price wise] but they are beyond just a meal. They are experiences, they're always going to be costed at what they are worth.”
One, in particular, would be a “once in a lifetime” affair, with top notch Japanese chef Keiko Kuwakino and acclaimed Māori chef Joe McLeod teaming up for a special $350 dinner celebrating the connections between Japanese and Māori food traditions at Pipitea Marae in late August.
“Joe is just the master of Māori cuisine and then we have this incredible Michelin star chef Keiko, who has a tiny little restaurant in the hills of Niigata. Both of them are avid foragers; it’s part of their kaupapa to pass down indigenous knowledge through food. It will be truly special.”
She noted 29 of the burgers were priced under $20, with the growth in the number of entries led by regional entries.
“Burger Wellington is [about] creative boundaries. Some of those ones that are [priced] higher, there's a lot of creativity behind them. But there's also some good stock standard burgers.”
American “burger scholar”, historian and “true master” George Motz was the event’s judge. He would also be hosting a one-off masterclass ($45 no food) that anyone who fancied themselves as a good home smash burger cook shouldn’t miss, Brash said.
Alongside the ticketed events there were free (around a fifth of those on offer) and non-ticketed ones such as pop-ups or pay-on-consumption meals.
One of those, the four day Next Gen Cookoff featured chefs from several restaurants that have Michelin star selected status, including Koji, Hummingbird, Kisa and Rosella, cooking a three-course dinner from rescued food, Brash said. “So you get a Michelin worthy meal and pay what you can.”
A third of ticketed events had already sold out, though some of those were ones with limited “seats”. They ranged from farm dinners and immersive experiences through to quirky collaborations such as a dessert quiz with Laser Kiwi, a cocktail event with the Wellington Potters Association, a guided hīkoi through forest and an evening of sea shanties at Little Beer Quarter.
That, says Brash, is evidence ‒if it were needed‒of the buzz the festival continues to create.
“You know, when Wellington On a Plate started August was the slowest time for hospo. It’s now the second busiest time for hospo, second only to the lead up to Christmas.”
The details
Wellington On a Plate takes place during the month of August. Burger Wellington is on from August 3 to August 23.
Visa Wellington On a Plate is owned and managed by the Wellington Culinary Events Trust, which also delivers Beervana ( August 21-22). Principal funding and support is provided by WellingtonNZ (Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency), Wellington City Council and Visa.
International chef collaborations and indigenous culinary exchange events are supported by the Government’s Events Boost Fund. There are also a number of corporate sponsors.
The festival also supports local talent through the David George Fund, which each year helps with development and training for a front-of-house professional.
Last year’s Visa Wellington On a Plate and Beervana festivals delivered a $10 million boost to the capital’s economy.