Doughnut Time and Ze Pickle create a smoked-Nutella bacon burger
Get your arteries ready, Brisbane's Doughnut Time and Ze Pickle are collaborating on a burger – and it may be the ultimate hangover-destroyer. Placed between the fresh-grilled halves of Doughnut Time's O.G. (original glazed) doughnut will be a hand-pressed wagyu beef patty, double Jack cheese and yes, Nutella-smoked bacon. Brazenly named Doughnutf*kwitdis, the burger will be available at Ze Pickle's Gold Coast and Brisbane venues from January 3 – just in time for everyone to break their well-intentioned New Year's resolutions about healthy eating.
"The inspiration definitely comes from something we'd want to eat as well as pushing the limits and thinking outside the typical meat-and-cheese burger warriors," says Ze Pickle's co-owner Nathan Zuckerman. "We laugh at Maccas' 'healthy options' menu, we want to have the 'unhealthy options menu'. We have been messing around with these burgers for a long time with other sweet buns, but once we saw Doughnut Time and the way they operate, it was a given that we needed to work together on this beast."
The two brands have been talking about the collaboration for a month or so ("over beers, of course," says Zuckerman) and Ze Pickle co-owner Aaron Wilson says the idea for slamming Nutella-smoked bacon between the 'buns' came from Doughnut Time's Love at First Bite – a Nutella-filled flavour dusted with cinnamon sugar – and their desire to create a savoury reinterpretation of its taste.
Given that maple-smoked bacon is everywhere these days, Ze Pickle's owners decided to concoct a Nutella version, which took some time to perfect in ZeLab, an experimental new venture they eventually hope to open locally in 2016. (It's "basically like a fun factory, where we will be constantly playing with the crazy ideas we have in our heads," says Wilson.)
"The taste of the burger is a little odd for some, but a winner in our eyes," says Zuckerman. "We are addicted to Doughnut Time's gorgeous and moreish glazed O.G.s – throw in the rich nutty sweet crunch of the Nutella bacon and the savoury flavours of wagyu and Jack cheese and it's a match made in, well, more like hell than heaven, but that's the way we like it."
And for any Sydneysiders feeling intense Burger Envy, don't worry – Ze Pickle is opening a location on Surry Hill's Foveaux Street in March.