The Oran Park Hotel has been crowned the home of New South Wales’s best burger, securing the top title at the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) NSW Awards for Excellence. The venue also took home the coveted Metropolitan Hotel of the Year award, with its success attributed to its commitment to house-made ingredients.
Award-Winning Ingredients
Sam Youngs from Oran Park Hotel revealed the secret to the award-winning burger lies in the kitchen’s focus on quality. A big part of it is that we 100 per cent make our own burger patties,
Youngs told nine.com.au. The flagship Deluxe Burger features two house-ground patties made from a blend of Wagyu topside and brisket. The burger itself, we use Wagyu topside and brisket. We mince it all ourselves, and you really get that flavour from the brisket.
The burger is served on a soft potato bun with aged cheddar, maple bacon, truffle mayonnaise, onion rings, tomato, and lettuce, accompanied by chips, for $32 for members.
The Perfect Side of Chips
Attention to detail extends beyond the patties to the side dish. The pub fries its chips in cottonseed oil rather than standard oils to achieve a superior crunch. Most places will use canola, but with cottonseed you can get it a little bit hotter, so you get the fries a little bit crispier. We also have our house seasoning blend that we put on our chips.
This focus on quality ingredients has made the venue popular, with the pub serving between 40 and 50 burgers daily.
A Remarkable Run of Success
The accolades cap off a remarkable two years for the Oran Park Hotel, which opened in December 2022. In addition to winning Best Burger and Metropolitan Hotel of the Year, the pub also finished runner-up for its rooftop bar, which opened approximately 18 months ago. The judges from the AHA visited the venue incognito to decide on this year’s winners. The AHA NSW Awards for Excellence drew more than 850 nominations across 47 categories, highlighting the resilience of the state’s hospitality sector. AHA NSW CEO John Whelan praised the calibre of the field, stating, These hotels range from mum and dad operations in the most remote parts of the state to multi-level entertainment precincts in our nation’s greatest city.
He noted that hotels directly employ 72,000 people, raise millions for charity, and add $6.8 billion in value to the NSW economy.
