When Michelin Came For Dinner At Budget Tyres

How a humble tyre shop became New Zealand’s least likely fine dining destination

When it was announced that the Michelin Guide was finally coming to New Zealand, most people assumed the usual suspects would be in the running. The vineyard restaurants. The waterfront temples to foam. The places where the bill arrives in its own bespoke leather sleeve and your chair has better posture than you do.

No one was expecting Budget Tyres on the corner of SH1 and the industrial estate.

Yet here we are, watching a French inspector in a slightly crumpled blazer close his eyes in reverence as he bites into what the handwritten chalkboard menu calls a “Nitro-Infused Alignment Platter”.

To the untrained eye, this is a staff lunch area wedged between a tyre rack and the wheel alignment bay. To the Michelin inspector, it is quite possibly the future of dining.

Budget Tyres did not plan this. According to Baz, the workshop manager and now, reluctantly, head chef, it started the day the team read that Michelin stars were coming. Someone said the obvious thing.

“Michelin. Tyres. That is literally our brand, bro.”

From that point on, it was destiny, or possibly fumes.

The first challenge was the menu. Any ordinary person would have suggested bringing in proper ingredients and real kitchen equipment. Budget Tyres took the opposite approach. They decided that, in the spirit of authenticity, all dishes must be created using only what could be found in a typical tyre shop.

No truffle slicer. No sous vide bath. Just the parts washer, a heat gun, several steel rims, a worn-out tyre machine and the staff fridge that has seen some things.

The signature dish emerged on a particularly slow Tuesday. Someone had left their lunch in the fridge, a sad container of leftover sausages. Baz, in a burst of inspiration or boredom, skewered them on wheel nuts and slow-roasted them using the balancing machine as a rotisserie and the gentle warmth of a 1000 watt work lamp.

“Wheel Nut Sausage Brochettes” were born.

Served on a pristine tread pattern of a brand new 18-inch all terrain, with a reduction of legally ambiguous tomato sauce, they were an instant hit. The team agreed this was at least one star. Possibly two if you counted the fact that nothing caught fire.

From there, the menu evolved at speed.

There was “Degreaser Ceviche”, in which cubes of fish from the dairy’s freezer next door were gently blanched in citrus cordial and fanned artfully on a steel rim that had been polished within an inch of its life. The name was purely conceptual. No actual degreaser was harmed in the making of the dish. Probably.

There was “Run-Flat Fondue”, a communal experience featuring a bowl fashioned from a sliced cross-section of run-flat tyre filled with molten supermarket cheese, heated by a carefully positioned heat gun. Diners dipped bread cubes and modest fear into it using repurposed valve tools as skewers.

The most controversial dish was “WOF Tasting Plate”. This was not, as the inspector first feared, a selection of items swept off the floor after a warrant inspection. It was a thoughtful trio: a perfectly crisp hash brown stamped with a tread-depth gauge, a poached egg balanced elegantly inside a wheel hub, and a grilled tomato delicately marked with the imprint of a tyre pressure gauge.

It was at once alarming and beautiful. Like driving through the Desert Road at dusk knowing your spare is flat.

What elevates Budget Tyres from mere stunt dining, in my opinion, is the obsessive attention to detail. Service is conducted with all the solemnity of a French palace. Guests are greeted with a complimentary “Welcome Alignment”, which is simply being asked whether you want your plastic chair moved slightly so it is centred under the fluorescent tube.

Napkins are repurposed blue workshop towels, folded into shapes that could be swans or possibly brake pads. The wine list is a whiteboard that says “BYO from the bottle-o, no screw tops exploded yet”. The sommelier is Gaz, who explains very earnestly which wines pair best with the lingering aroma of tyre smoke.

Then, of course, there is the “Tasting Degustation Experience”. Seven courses, each named after a Michelin tyre line.

“Primacy Entrée”: a single, perfectly seared scallop served on the flat face of a torque wrench, with a drizzle of aioli applied using an oil can.

“Pilot Sport Main”: steak grilled on a red-hot brake disc, rested on a stack of rego plates for flavour and authority.

“Energy Saver Dessert”: a deconstructed pavlova in the hollow of a spare wheel, topped with sliced fruit and garnished with a dusting of icing sugar shaken through an old air filter. It should not work. It really should not. Yet it does.

Throughout it all, Baz and the team remain bewildered by their own success.

“We just thought, if some French tyre guy is handing out stars, we may as well shoot our shot,” Baz says, wiping his hands on an apron that used to be a seat cover. “We already know tyres. We’re just adding lunch.”

The Michelin inspector, to his credit, has leaned fully into the madness. He takes notes. He nods. He asks meaningful questions about the mouthfeel of food eaten while the rattle gun goes off in the background.

At one point he asks whether the constant hiss of the air compressor is intentional ambience. Baz, without missing a beat, says yes. It represents the release of tension between traditional notions of fine dining and the realities of the working Kiwi lunch break.

Is Budget Tyres about to receive New Zealand’s first ever “Workshop Star” in the Michelin Guide. No one knows. The criteria for such a thing have almost certainly not been written.

Yet if Michelin is serious about rewarding excellence, honesty and a sense of place, there is a strong argument that the future of New Zealand dining might actually be hiding behind a stack of used tyres and a faded poster saying “Finance Available”.

In a world of carefully curated experiences, Budget Tyres has somehow created something genuine. Food that tastes like ingenuity and smells faintly of lubricant. Service that is unpolished and deeply kind. Plates that might still have part numbers on them.

If the Michelin man does not recognise that, perhaps we should give them our own award.

Three Southern Crosses. For courage, creativity and the first ever pavlova served in a mag wheel.

If this struck a chord, you will find more hard truths, sharp edges and the occasional laugh at www.regenerationhq.co.nz/satire. We can do better and we should expect better, starting today.