Kiwi cuisine queen Sue's sweet taste of success

Sue Fleischl’s journey to culinary excellence was a colourful one, with the Great Kiwi Bake Off judge becoming a solo mum and battling cancer while building her empire.

- JUDY BAILEY

Sue Fleischl is one of the unsung legends of the New Zealand culinary scene. These days, you may recognise her as one of the judges on TVNZ 1’s popular series The Great Kiwi Bake Off, but the Savoy-trained chef has done much to revolutionise the nation’s concept of food.

An elegant, outgoing woman, she is, by her own admission, a classic type-A personality. Common traits for these individuals include a strong character, the need to operate at speed, impatience, competitiveness and high achievement. Sue has needed all those characteristics to survive and thrive in the demanding world of professional cuisine.

She was born in Napier, the daughterof an Austrian refugee. Peter Fleischl and his wife Charmian were both doctors, with Sue the youngest of their five children. Charmian died when Sue was just five years old. Her mother had time, though, to make sure that there was someone there to help her husband with her young family, asking his practice nurse Jeannie Barret to step in. Jeannie had previously owned a kindergarten and Charmian thought she would be good with children. And so it proved to be. Jeannie became, says Sue, like a second mother.

“Dad loved food. He had a very productive garden – we grew avocados, figs and guavas, and picked our own olives. It was very different to the norm in Napier. We ate what is now known as a Mediterranean diet.”