It’s been an Onslow signature menu item since day one. Now, Josh Emett’s famous crayfish eclair has clawed its way into the Iconic Auckland Eats Top 100 list.
“Old school,” confirms chef Josh Emett.
He’s running through the recipe for Auckland’s most famous eclair filling: steamed
“Tomato sauce,” says Emett.
He is a chef who loves the classics and it doesn’t get much more classic than a ketchup-spiked Marie Rose sauce, the kind your grandmother dolloped on prawns and lettuce and called a cocktail. But the Onslow kitchen doesn’t stop circa 1976.
“If we can, we use fresh horseradish. It’s that classic Marie Rose base, but then you obviously use cayenne, tabasco, all of those sorts of flavours,” says Emett.
“We test it a lot. We sense-check it a lot. And it’s ‘more spice, more spice, more spice’. I like it with a bit of a kick. Otherwise it’s sort of sweet, crunchy and it’s got all that textural stuff going on, but a bit of punch is good.”
An estimated 40% of all Onslow diners order the $22 crayfish eclair. Some nights, 70% of the room eats the savoury choux pastry dish that has been on the menu since day one of the Princes St restaurant opening.
This week, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited acknowledged what so many diners already know. For the first time, the Onslow crayfish eclair with organic egg, spiced bisque and herbs, made it on to the Iconic Auckland Eats Top 100 list.
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Advertise with NZME.Arguably the most instagrammed restaurant snack in the city, the savoury eclair was on Margot Robbie’s table when the actor was in town to celebrate the New Zealand launch of her new gin brand Papa Salt. It was an obligatory part of the canape offering at a well-dressed New Zealand Fashion Week industry event. Ask Emett how many of these things he’s served and he’s not sure.
“Since we opened? Probably, 50-60-70,000. Maybe more? I don’t know.”
(The canape version is, by necessity, slightly smaller. “You cannot eat this standing up!” he says, piling crayfish sky high on the restaurant menu sample he’s preparing for a Viva Premium online video.)
What does “iconic” mean to Emett?
“Something that stands the test of time, that lasts and that strikes a chord with people in some way. It also, perhaps, makes a statement about something.”
Emett and his wife Helen opened Onslow in late 2020. It’s a restaurant that harks back “to the roots of my training”, says the chef who has worked extensively in London and New York and counts Gordon Ramsay among his old bosses (and Gwyneth Paltrow among his fans).
“My training was pretty formal, based on great techniques, and bringing a point of difference to them and integrating New Zealand ingredients ... We love things that are classic, sophisticated and, you know, luxurious.”
The crayfish comes from the Chatham Islands or Fiordland. The eclair is a sugarless choux pastry piped with a star nozzle, baked daily and slightly warmed before serving to crisp it up. The unsung star of the show is the sticky, heady bisque that begins life as a 10-litre pot of stock full of roasted crayfish heads.
It boils for hours and hours, reducing by about 90%, before it’s brushed gently over the top of the eclair shell.
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Advertise with NZME.“If you ate it isolated, on its own, it’s definitely overpowering, it’s super strong. But as a glaze on top, it’s just absolutely spectacular.”
The crayfish eclair is inherently local and iconically Onslow’s, but its inspiration comes from the other side of the world.
“To be honest, it comes from a sweet place. I adore eclairs. Cafe eclairs, chocolate eclairs.”
In London with Helen, the pair spotted “a gorgeous little eclair shop ... just eclairs, all sweet, no savoury”.
It was one of those concepts Emett wished he’d thought of himself. For months, the vision of that shop sat in the back of his mind.
“I thought, ‘there has to be a savoury version’ ... a little gold box, with a crayfish eclair.”
He ditched the box, put the eclair on a plate and hasn’t stopped serving it since.
“You never really know. You do create dishes that don’t leave menus. There is an expectation that it’s always there. It has just become one of those Onslow signature dishes.”
The 2025 Auckland Iconic Eats Top 100 was announced on Monday. And while it was not a debut appearance for Onslow (its braised organic beef cheek made the cut in 2022) it was a first for the crayfish eclair, selected from a record 3109 public nominations.
Presented by Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, on behalf of Auckland Council, the annual list was first presented in 2020 and aims to celebrate the diversity and quality of Auckland’s food scene and its hospitality industry.
Any dish from any food business, including market stalls, bakeries and food trucks can be nominated. Judges then select the Top 100 based on personal nomination stories submitted by the public about their favourite dishes. This year, 77 dishes are new to the list and 39 businesses appear for the first time.
Writing in support of Emett’s iconic pastry, one diner said: “If my budget permitted, I’d eat the crayfish eclair from Onslow for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day. The ingredients seem unconventional but when combined, create the most delicate yet flavourful dish imaginable.”
Go to Viva Premium to watch Josh Emett create the iconic crayfish eclair. For more information on Iconic Auckland Eats, visit aucklandnz.com/iconic-eats
Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016 and is currently a senior journalist on its lifestyle desk.
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