With its borders open again, New Zealand is serving up a dining scene where sustainability and respect for the local shines
More than 40 new restaurants, bars and cafes opened last year in Auckland alone, and the finest newcomers are as strong on ethics as they are on flavour.
Chefs are highlighting native ingredients, indigenous cooking techniques and practices such as foraging and small community production – linked to the Māori practice of māra kai (gardening for food).
Blessed with distinctive ingredients, New Zealand’s restaurant scene has become as impressive as the country’s natural wonders. In Auckland’s buzzing Britomart precinct, Tom Hishon and Josh Helm’s kingi provides a superb showcase for seafood sourced from independent fisher folk who guarantee an ethical catch, with accompaniments coming from growers practising regenerative farming.
Britomart neighbour Mr Morris is another fine newcomer, using exclusively local, ethical, sustainable and seasonal produce to create a modern taste of Aotearoa.
Another exciting addition to the Auckland scene is Ahi – “fire” in a local Māori tongue – which was opened on the Commercial Bay waterfront in August 2020 by chef Ben Bayly.
Here he brings skills honed at Michelin-starred European restaurants such as L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon and The Ledbury to local ingredients, some from the restaurant’s own garden at nearby Patumahoe. Its interior, meanwhile, features reclaimed native timber and a woven oak ceiling inspired by a Māori kete or basket.
Wellington also offers superlative cuisine befitting its capital city status. Leading the new wave of Māori chefs is Monique Fiso, whose restaurant Hiakai is one of NZ’s most sought-after tables.
Sublime tasting menus draw on indigenous myths for inspiration, backed by Fiso’s mix of classic French training with seven years at elite New York spots. Signature notes include foraged wild plants such as kawakawa and the fiery horopito used fresh, dehydrated or pickled, alongside Māori delicacies like tītī – also known as muttonbird (or, to ornithologists, the sooty shearwater).
Savvy diners also make a pilgrimage to the small coastal settlement of Paraparaumu – 30 miles from Wellington – to chef Helen Turnbull’s 50-50.
Set just back from a glorious beach with views to Kapiti Island, Turnbull digs deep into foraged finds and the market gardens of nearby Horowhenua, adding skills learned over five years of cooking in Tokyo – and plating up dishes such as local crayfish steamed with yuzu jam and kombu custard.
Moeraki Bay, on the east coast of South Island, is famous for the strange spherical boulders scattered on its glorious sands – but the cooking at Fleur’s Place is achieving its own renown.
A rustic building on a jetty lapped by Pacific waters provides a humble backdrop to Fleur Sullivan’s expertise with local flavours on a menu where seafood is very much to the fore.
There’s a more dramatically wondrous setting for The Sherwood amid the awesome peaks and alpine lakes of Queenstown. Its sustainability credentials are as appealing as its creative seasonal menus. Its kitchen garden is nourished by organic kitchen waste and there’s a rich larder of local produce. The bar is zero-waste too, with 60 per cent of the wines bottled in-house.
Talking of wine, when you’re grazing the wine list, look out for bottles produced by pioneering NZ makers such as Tuku – the world’s first Māori wine makers’ collective.
One member of the collective, local Kiwi Hayden Johnston, also has his own restaurant, The Canyon at Tarras Vineyards, where you can enjoy a cellar door experience in one of the country’s most renowned wine growing regions.
Loveblock, meanwhile, in the South Island’s Awatere Valley is breaking new ground by using green tea to replace sulphur dioxide in its organic sauvignon blanc, while Babich Wines is a leading light of organic wine-making in NZ, with cellar doors awaiting you in Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and Henderson Valley.
New Zealand also offers a host of superb vineyard restaurants, and one of the finest is at Black Estate, a small biodynamic and organic winery in North Canterbury. One of NZ’s rising star wine-growing regions, it’s a perfect spot to savour delicious locally sourced meals in a landscape that’s among the finest on Earth.
Getting there
Singapore Airlines is the ideal choice for travellers wanting to discover New Zealand. Fly from London Heathrow with four daily flights available or four weekly flights from Manchester to Singapore with seamless onward connections to Auckland and Christchurch on Singapore Airlines and with Air New Zealand.
Explore more of New Zealand with partner airline Air New Zealand and connect to over 20 domestic destinations. Book by 31 July 2022 to enjoy greater booking flexibility with Singapore Airlines’ complimentary rebooking policy.
Find out more information on flights to New Zealand with Singapore Airlines.
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