Food & Wine

New Zealand has been confirmed as one of the world’s top destinations with a string of international awards for 2010 that applaud the country for being an easy, fun place to live in and visit.

Knives will be out this weekend at Auckland’s SKYCITY as top chefs from around the globe fly in for one of New Zealand’s most glamorous food and wine events.

Traditional and contemporary Maori kai and ‘outside the square’ wildfood are the focus of Kai in the Bay, a new indigenous food festival set in the Hawke’s Bay region of the North Island.

Tickets for New Zealand’s premier wine, food and music event – Toast Martinborough – are about to go on sale with organisers bracing themselves for a repeat of last year when 10,000 sold out in just 13 minutes.

Wine and food lovers are getting ready for one of New Zealand’s longest-running premier food and wine events – the Marlborough Wine Festival.

Gourmet seafood pies, mussels, paua, salmon, prawns, whitebait, oysters, scallop kebabs and crayfish will once again tantalise tastebuds at the annual Kaikoura Seafest on New Zealand’s rugged southern coast next month.

A dedicated lamb festival, which includes a 'running with the lambs' event through the streets of a small Central Hawke’s Bay town, promises rugby fans a rare treat and some true grassroots action during Rugby World Cup 2011.

Wellington’s culinary star is about to burn even brighter – with one of the world’s most prestigious cooking schools opening a branch in the city centre late next year.

Ashburton – a rural town in Canterbury – became an international chocolate capital this weekend as two Kiwi chocolatiers set about creating a new Guinness World Record for the longest chocolate bar.

A small relatively young New Zealand winery has won a top international pinot noir award, beating 19 other countries including many of the world’s most famous wine producers.