Cuisine Style and Influences
Spare a thought for the person dining in a New Zealand restaurant. In a country surrounded by ocean, and with rural pasture dominating the landscape, the fresh fare on offer ranges from exquisite crayfish from the sea, to tender lamb, to lean, distinctive cervena (venison).
Now throw into that mix the enthusiasm of Kiwi chefs for incorporating styles and influences from all over the world into their Pacific Rim cuisine. The result for the dinner is a wealth of choice from innovative menus featuring delicious fresh food, often ingeniously presented.
What is New Zealand cuisine? Which word could describe it? The best would probably be 'diverse'. Local chefs draw inspiration from Asia, Polynesia, Europe and home, but are constantly redefining the essence of New Zealand cuisine. Fresh ingredients such as superb asparagus, seafood and shellfish (including the unique Bluff oysters and Marlborough's green-lipped mussels), the world's finest dairy products, succulent fruits and, in recent times, organic produce, mean there is no shortage of top-quality culinary components.
New Zealand is a relatively young country, in world terms, and with that youth comes a vibrancy and willingness to experiment with food, both by the creator of the dish and the consumer. The multi-cultural nature of New Zealand society - European, Maori, Pacific Island, Asian and Indian in particular - makes for exciting eating. As well as incorporating the influences of other cultures into our cuisine, New Zealand chefs have become renowned for their innovation and flair and many have gained recognition offshore. Phillip Kraal, who hails from Christchurch in the South Island, was Chef Tournant at London's Ritz Hotel, and was personal chef to King Hussein I of Jordan. He is now owner of the well-respected, award-winning Christchurch restaurant Le Bon Bolli.
Kiwi chef Philip Johnson took his talents across the Tasman, where he set up Brisbane's best eatery - e'cco bistro - in 1995. Since then he, and the restaurant, have won numerous awards including Best Restaurant in Brisbane City and Best Restaurant in Queensland (at the 2000 American Express Restaurant Awards). Perhaps not surprisingly, the Australians are happy to call him their own, and he was featured recently in a profile of 'Australia's 50 finest chefs'. At e'cco's website the influence of his New Zealand origins can be seen in several recipes - for example: grilled lamb loin, couscous, spiced eggplant and wilted spinach; tartlet of steamed asparagus, goat’s curd, kalamata olives and basil. The e'cco wine list features several New Zealand contributions: 2000 Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, 1999 Wairau Peaks Chardonnay and 1999 Te Mata Cabernet Merlot.
Other noteworthy New Zealand chefs offshore include Peter Gordon who took his virtuoso Pacific Rim cooking style and shook up tastebuds in London. He now runs one of London's most exclusive restaurants, the providores.
This is a familiar talent of New Zealand's chefs: they are not constrained by fussy tradition, and with such a bounty of fresh produce from which to choose they have the freedom to express themselves in their culinary creations. They enjoy adapting dishes to include local ingredients, but also creating entirely new concoctions, 'pulling together unlikely combinations' successfully.
‘Wine is the most civilised thing in the world.’ - Ernest Hemingway.
And New Zealand has plenty of it. Perhaps even better known than New Zealand lamb, mussels and other foods are the country's world-class wines. New Zealand's success at International Wine Competitions is but an indicator of the overall sophistication and quality of New Zealand wine.
The accolades bestowed upon the wine speak for themselves, but awards are only part of the story. Much of the joy in experiencing a great New Zealand meal comes in its accompanying wine. No surprise then, that in a country where seafood is usually present on the menu, that Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are of consistently high quality, providing the perfect match to New Zealand cuisine. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, rated by English wine critic Auberon Waugh as the world's best, suits fresh seafood and white fish, especially when the fish is served with citrus or garlic-based sauces and a fresh summer salad with tomatoes. New Zealand Chardonnay has earned a reputation as one of the most versatile food wines and is also perfect teamed with seafood dishes.
There are 10 major wine-producing areas in New Zealand, with Marlborough (home to Cloudy Bay) famed for its sauvignon blanc, Gisborne for its chardonnay, and Central Otago and Martinborough building a reputation for pinot noir and pinot gris. Hawke's Bay is known for its bold cabernets and Auckland’s Waiheke Island is home to Stonyridge Larose, one of the top 20 cabernet blends in the world. Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay are New Zealand’s two premium wine-growing regions.
'What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?' - W. C. Fields
New Zealand's excellent wine and food festivals mean that even if the cork was stolen from your 'lunch', the food on offer would make up for it. Well-organised, fun-filled food and wine festivals play a big part in New Zealand's cultural events calendar, particularly in summer (December-March). Best known of these is probably the Marlborough Food and Wine Festival in February. People come from all over the world to attend the event, held in Montana Winery's Brancott Estate in Blenheim. The event is so popular it is essential to have accommodation booked by mid-August or find somewhere to stay out of town. It's worth it. The festival is a great opportunity to sample wines from Marlborough - the biggest grape-growing and wine-making region in New Zealand - along with other New Zealand wines and New Zealand and international cuisine.
For something a little different as far as food festivals go, the Hokitika Wild Foods Festival provides the opportunity to try food you are unlikely to see on a restaurant menu. Fancy a feast of worm sushi? How about mountain oysters? No they're not seafood, but a euphemistic way of describing the delicate body part that makes a male sheep a ram! You could always wash both down with a sip of gorse flower wine, of course. The Hokitika Wildfoods Festival was first held in 1990, and has increased in popularity every year. This year 15,267 people attended, many from other countries. As well as the more unusual items of food available, the Festival features traditional kiwi fare, including seafood, delicious New Zealand whitebait and cervena. Essentially, the occasion is a celebration of the South Island West Coast's unique lifestyle, food and hospitality, with an emphasis on novel, tasty and healthy food from the land and sea, presented in an innovative manner. The Wildfoods Chefs' Challenge has become a popular part of the event, which sees three invited chefs presented with a mystery box from which they are required to produce a mouth-watering two-course meal within an hour.
Other festivals showcasing stunning food and wine include the Harvest Hawke's Bay Wine and Food Festival held in February; the Martinborough Food and Wine Fair, and the Devonport Food and Wine Festival in Auckland (both also held in February). If seafood is your delight, the Bluff Oyster and Southland Seafood Festival is held in May each year.
'Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used; exclaim no more against it.' - William Shakespeare, Othello
Wine trails in days gone by had a reputation of merely being an excuse to drink a lot and be driven from winery to winery in a bus. These days, a growing awareness of food being a big part of the wine experience means many vineyards feature excellent restaurants, from outdoor cafés to the full fine dining experience. New Zealanders have certainly become a lot more sophisticated about their wine tasting experiences as a result. Wine tours or trails can be found in all winemaking regions. As well as the opportunity to sample world-class wines (some of which are only for sale in the vineyard and not commercially available), food is very much part of the occasion.
Wine tours available in New Zealand range from the personalised trail to simply joining a group of people and travelling to pre-determined wine locations in a bus. Personalised tours are good for people who have specific preferences and a set amount of time. But both are a wonderful opportunity to take in magnificent scenery, as well as food and wine, particularly in regions such as Queenstown, Marlborough and Hawke's Bay.
Vineyards around the country run the full gamut from boutique wineries to the sumptuous Sileni Estates in Hawke's Bay. New Zealand's newest winery, Sileni embodies sheer class. The idea behind the opulent design has been to create a total food and wine experience for locals and international travellers. There is a fine dining and al fresco restaurant on site, as well as the Epicurean Centre and Cellar. The vineyard is a stunning showcase for Hawke's Bay, an area with around 35 wineries, many featuring excellent restaurants. While New Zealand is best known for its white wine, a visit to Sileni is worth it to sample red, including its fine Merlot/Cabernets 1998.
Taking a wine trail also provides the chance to become acquainted with those who have settled in New Zealand, and their history. The ancestors of many winemakers here brought with them the winemaking traditions of their homeland, much as New Zealand chefs incorporate the cuisine of other cultures into their creations. Award-winning Kumeu River vineyard, west of Auckland, was established in 1944 when Mick and Kate Brajkovich and their son Mate settled in the small country settlement of Kumeu. They had originally come from Yugoslavia in 1938. In 1989, one of Mate's sons - Michael - became New Zealand's first member of the prestigious Institute of Masters of Wine, London.
New Zealand's willingness, as the young player in the world, to learn from its older siblings has led to the creation of fresh cuisine and wine that demands attention. While diverse influences play their part as chefs and winemakers create their award-winning products, the end result is quintessentially Kiwi: innovative, freely expressed, sophisticated, fresh and vibrant. That's what it's all about down here.
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