Gold Crust Pies is a bakery at 76A Clyde Rd in Browns Bay, on Auckland's North Shore, with a 4.5-star Google rating. The name gives a fair hint at the speciality, and in New Zealand a bakery's reputation rests on its pies.
A good pie starts with pastry that flakes without collapsing and a filling generous with meat rather than padded out with gravy, the surest sign of hand-finished work rather than a reheated frozen one. Regulars judge a bakery on its mince and cheese or potato top before anything else in the cabinet. Timing matters too: many bakeries bake in batches through the morning, so those in the know ask when the next tray comes out rather than settling for what has sat in the warmer since dawn.
Browns Bay's shops sit a short stroll from the beach, and a warm pie makes a fitting finish to a morning on the sand.