Food enthusiasts and home cooks rejoice - you’re in for a tasty treat next weekend with the Bay of Plenty region’s biggest food and drink celebration.
The Tauranga Food Show will celebrate its 10th anniversary over three days of “foodie fun” at Mercury Arena Baypark on August 25-27.
The show brings together some of the region’s biggest culinary names, as well as more than 150 artisan heavyweights exhibiting all the ooh-la-la treats.
Think honey, chocolate, spices, oils, truffles, and relishes to dollop on to a wedge of gouda, or brie on a baguette sandwich.
Organiser Dana McCurdy from Bay Events says a popular crowd-puller will be the unique exhibitors creating Kiwi versions of international flavours that you don’t find in supermarkets.
“Mount Maunganui’s Small Batch makes a vegan German spread called Streichcreme; Wellington’s Elysian Foods makes New Zealand’s only locally made Greek taramasalata (dip), and Rotorua’s Monisha at Mon’s Flavors makes amazing authentic spice blends inspired by her childhood in India,” she says.
As well as the established Saturday and Sunday show, 2023 will mark the first “premier day” on Friday, which offers limited tickets and smaller crowds and queues.
This year’s festival will also debut alcoholic craft beverage master classes in “sit-down mini-events”, and a sizeable food truck alley for the bon vivant.
What’s more, what would a food show be without a live cooking kitchen?
We asked a few of the Bay of Plenty chefs who will be showcasing their skills about their backgrounds and what they’ll cook.
Plus, we asked for their best cheffing tip that everyone needs to know for when they pull out their pinny at home.
Simone Saglia
Growing up in the Piedmont region in Italy, Saglia says pots and pans were his toys.
Both his parents worked and he spent his childhood days with his retired aunt Rosaria, who would hand-shape pillowy dough into gnocchi and ravioli with Saglia’s help.
Appreciating the value of traditions, he later made cooking a career and forged a fine reputation at Michelin-star eateries in Italy and London before being recruited by famous Australian restaurateur and chef Neil Perry and moving to Melbourne in 2012.
Then Covid struck, and it inspired a move to New Zealand with his Kiwi wife Kylie and their two children last year.
The family now owns The Trading Post Osteria Italiana in Paengaroa, near Te Puke, which they took over and rebranded three months ago.
Saglia replicates the flavours and tastes you get in Italy by using the best products he can find in New Zealand and then hand-making everything, including pastries.
“I do what I love to do and what I’ve been shown to do since I was a kid. Fine-dining [Italian] restaurants were born out of every household in Italy,” he says.
At the food show, he will make cheese-filled pasta, demonstrating different folding styles such as ravioli, tortelli and agnolotti del plin - a typical pasta shape from his home region, with a butter and sage sauce.
He says you can put anything in the pasta, including leftovers from a Sunday roast — chopped or minced — and he will have tips and tricks on how to do it at home.
“Once you have the dough, it is quite easy to make and quite fun to do.”
His number-one tip for home cooks: “Keep it simple with flavours. Some of the tastiest recipes are made by only using three or four ingredients. For example, the Caprese salad is simply tomato, mozzarella and basil. A drizzle of oil and a pinch of salt only supports the flavours already in the ingredients.”
- You can catch Simone at the food show on Sunday, 3.30pm.
Perrin Yates
The Australian chef’s chosen dish for the food show is a mouthful in more ways than one. Try rolling “beef bulgogi with tomatillo salsa verde” off the tongue.
Translated in Korean as “fired meat”, Yates will be creating a marinade for the flank steak on skewers, which will then be paired with a tomatillo salsa verde, both of which he says are “nice and easy and [things] anyone can do at home”.
Yates, who is originally from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, has lived in New Zealand since 2020.
He was the executive chef of both Picnicka and Clarence and is now executive chef and menu creator for a group of Mount Maunganui restaurants and cafes owned by Matt and Kimberley Haywood, which are Hide Thirst and Hunger; Brew Co; and the newly opened Sailor Rum Bar and Galley (formerly Fish Face), which offers a medley of dishes from around the world.
He also keeps himself busy with his own business, co-owning a recent finalist in the Cuisine Good Food Awards, Deckchair Cafe.
Yates has been a chef for 17 years and worked at some of the best hotels and resorts, including Qualia Resort on Hamilton Island, and is a fan of fusion cooking.
New Zealand and Australia have the best cuisine, he says, because we’re so multi-cultural.
“We learn about each other’s different food styles.”
The dish he will make for the food show is a popular dish on the menu at Hide, and it fuses Korean, South American and Japanese influences.
It can be cooked over coals on the barbecue or a flat-top grill at home.
He describes the taste as sweet, sour, salty and moreish, and best served with the tomatillo salsa verde for an added kick.
His number-one tip for home cooks: “Cook from the heart. Don’t be scared to try or taste new things. If you don’t like it, at least you’ve tried it. If it doesn’t turn out how you wanted it to, try again. Even professional chefs don’t get things right on the first attempt.”
- You can catch Perrin at the food show on Saturday, 1.30pm.
Ian Harrison
As well as a host of international credentials, Harrison jokes that “banter” can be added to his repertoire.
The proprietor/owner of Sugo – the Wharf St Italian restaurant – has opted out of “complicated cookery” in favour of simplicity you can sink your spoon into.
Harrison will make his “tried and tested” burned honey and thyme panna cotta with honeycomb for audiences, and promises a helping of good humour on the side.
Originally from Cheshire, England, Harrison — a chef for more than two decades — has cooked for Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal, and has been in New Zealand for 10 years. Locally, he’s also cooked for the adventure foodie pop-up restaurant Kitchen Takeover.
Of the food show, he says New Zealanders have an increasing interest in and understanding of food, and as a regular attendee, he enjoys their questions.
“Questions that normally get thrown my way are some of the more simple cookery, like, ‘How do you chop an onion really fast?’ or ‘Should we use flaky salt or not flaky salt?’ Everything that’s shown on social media or TV is pretty advanced, and you need to know the basics before you get there, so I think people are more interested in simple cookery demonstrations than complex ones.”
His number-one tip for home cooks: “To make that day-to-day dinner plate go from nice to next-level, you need these three ingredients: a very good extra virgin olive oil; flaky salt to finish a meal; and a very good vinegar to add acid to your meal.”
- You can catch Ian at the food show on Saturday, 11.30am.
Neil Sapitula
Sapitula is the executive chef and creative force behind Solera and Saltwater Grill & Oyster Bar in Mount Maunganui.
Of the food show, he says he gets nervous cooking in front of others, despite the fact multi-cultural restaurant Solera has an open kitchen and chef’s table which allows for eye-to-eye cooking action between chefs and customers.
And at Saltwater, a “hot line” and “cold line” depending on what you want to see prepared from the sea.
However, it’s a smaller crowd than the hundreds at the food show, he notes.
This month, award-winning Sapitula received his latest accolade - Cuisine magazine’s Rising Talent award for 2023 for both restaurants.
He is originally from Cavite in the Philippines and has worked mostly throughout Asia, including at Michelin restaurants Serge et le Phoque, and Mume and Vask Gallery, which are both ranked in Asia’s top 50.
He came to New Zealand in 2019 with his family and worked at Cocoro in Auckland, before moving to the Bay of Plenty two and a half years ago.
At the food show, he will make seafood paella, a Spanish rice dish packed with prawns, mussels, fish and squid. The dish is served every Sunday at Saltwater.
His number-one tip for home cooks: “Always play with acid (i.e. lemon, lime, vinegar). There’s good flavour in acid, and if it’s too sweet, add acid, and if too salty, the same thing. It balances everything.”
- You can catch Neil at the food show on Sunday, 1.30pm.
Tauranga Food Show
- August 25 to August 27
- 10am-5pm daily
- Mercury Arena Baypark
- Get tickets and more information via taurangafoodshow.nz.
Carly Gibbs is a weekend magazine writer for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post and has been a journalist for two decades. She is a former news and feature writer, for which she’s been both an award finalist and winner.
