Locals can’t get enough of the kai Māori croquettes at tiny New Plymouth cafe George’s.

This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up.

It had been at least years, potentially even decades, since I last visited Taranaki. So it was with a lot of excitement that earlier this week I found myself making the five-hour journey from Tāmaki Makaurau to Ngāmotu New Plymouth.

It was to be a relatively fleeting trip (less than 24 hours all up) as part of The Spinoff’s election coverage. But, as I tend to do before crossing beyond the Bombay Hills, I scoured Google and jotted down a list of kai spots worth making an effort to get to. Sustenance is always necessary, after all, even if it might not always be the priority.

Underlined on the fluorescent pink Post-it note on which I’d scrawled the names of 10 eateries in town was George’s cafe in Moturoa, a suburb a five-minute drive west of the city centre.

I have a real fondness for eating places that bridge generational divides – spaces that grandparents can enjoy just as much as their grandchildren. At its heart, that’s what George’s is: hearty kai served without pretension. On the varied menu are relatively familiar items like toasties, hot rolls, nachos and eggs on toast. Lolly slice, muffins, pies and club sandwiches populate the cabinet by the front counter. Everything looked delicious, but I’d been lured here by two things in particular: fried bread and boil up croquettes.

George’s is helmed by Landon Elder, who opened the place five years ago after returning from almost two decades overseas. Much of the menu is inspired by the food he grew up with – but all done with a slight zhuzh.

Upon returning home from Melbourne six years ago, Elder noticed that despite the growing recognition of te reo Māori and tikanga, there were few outlets selling kai that felt like home; that spoke to his experiences of growing up in Aotearoa. Feeling that there should be, Elder opened George’s, named after his koro.

It’s his koro’s fried bread recipe which he serves too. It’s a recipe passed down by George’s mum, Elder’s great grandmother, Nana Lucy. “She taught all her boys to cook, and my koro spent his whole life in the whare kai, he never left it,” says Elder. “He was always at the hāngī pit, he was always fishing and diving – that’s how we were brought up.

“We didn’t have a lot growing up, so there was just always fried bread because that was the thing to fill your puku with,” he says. Regular toppings were jam and cream, golden syrup, creamed pāua, sweetcorn – in essence, “just anything that was in the fridge”.

At George’s there are nine fried bread toppings to choose from. There are nostalgic classics like golden syrup and homemade jam, and also relatively newfangled flavours like pesto and tomato or steak and mushrooms (the latter inspired by trips to the Cook Islands).

Then there are the boil up croquettes. An enduring favourite among the truckies who pass by, they’re a by-product of the boil up served by the bowlful. Yesterday’s boil up remnants are encased in crumbs, deep-fried and served alongside a generously portioned ramekin of watercress aioli.

The concept arose out of catering work. “One of the brides I was catering for wanted boil up at her wedding,” says Elder. “I told her, ‘I can do it but it’s a bit hori’.” Elder instead pitched her on a more refined and easier-to-eat version of boil up: encased inside a croquette. “I’ve done a lot of canape parties in the past, so I know anything can be made into a croquette – a croquette is like a waka, its a transportation kind of thing.”

Since their addition to the menu, the dish – a deep-fried mix of inexpensive cuts of meat, starchy vegetables and watercress – has become a crowd favourite. “You bite into it and you get that aroma like you’re in your nan’s kitchen,” says Elder.

George’s has become more than just a place for a coffee and kai. On Tuesday evenings the shop is open for those who are learning te reo Māori, and members of the local hapū Ngāti Te Whiti are regulars. While I sip my mug of coffee, a kaumātua clutching a takeaway coffee pops by my table to introduce himself and ask whether I’m from out of town – he usually recognises everyone in George’s, he tells me.

“A lot of people who come in knew my koro too – people come in and you hear stories and there’s a lot of hugging and kissing going on in the shop,” says Elder. “It’s cool, it’s not just a cafe.”