Wallingford Homestead, one of the country’s oldest homesteads and now an acclaimed food and wine destination, is up for an award at the Cuisine Good Food Awards.
Wallingford Homestead, one of the country’s oldest homesteads and now an acclaimed food and wine destination, is up for an award at the Cuisine Good Food Awards.
Central Hawke’s Bay’s Wallingford Homestead has been named as one of 300 restaurants that will be featured in the highly anticipated Cuisine Good Food Guide 2024/25, to be released on August 26 at the Cuisine Good Food Awardsevent presented by American Express.
The restaurants span the length of the country and showcase the top hospitality establishments, from fine-dining and regional destinations to metropolitan and neighbourhood favourites.
Coinciding with the release of the Cuisine Good Food Guide, 20 category winners and more than 90 hatted restaurants, including Restaurant of the Year and Chef of the Year, will be announced at the Cuisine Good Food Awardsevent at the Park Hyatt in Auckland. This year’s awards will also feature two new categories: New Restaurant of the Year and Ōra King New Zealand Global Champion 2024.
Wallingford Homestead restaurateurs Chris Stockdale and Jeanette Woerner are hoping to feature in this year’s awards line-up.
“It’s a really lovely feeling to be listed again,” says Jeanette.
“We have been listed two times, initially in 2020/21 and again in 23/24″
Award-winning chef Chris Stockdale in action in the Wallingford Homestead kitchen.
“It’s helpful to us in so many ways. We’re a niche operation, really driven by our hearts. To be so small and be acknowledged by such a prestigious body is wonderful and encouraging. It raises our profile and creates an awareness that we exist.”
Cuisine Good Food Guide is viewed globally as the authority on the dining scene in New Zealand. Each year Cuisine selects more than 40 experts, led by food and dining expert Kerry Tyack and Cuisine Editor Kelli Brett, to anonymously judge restaurants throughout the year and determine the list and winners.
The dining room at Wallingford Homestead on a sunny spring day.
The experts are a mix of food writers and critics, chefs and hospitality industry professionals who eat at hundreds of restaurants during the year to help curate the selection.
For Chris, an award-winning chef, and Jeanette, the Wallingford experience is far different from their previous roles running their own award-winning restaurants and fine-diners in Sydney.
“Our market are people who yearn for bespoke service, folks who want to slow down, reconnect with the beauty of nature and indulge their culinary palates. By and large, we use sustainable and local produce. All our suppliers care about everyone’s tomorrows.
Slow food, locally sourced, is a feature at Wallingford Homestead.
“We grow artichokes, herbs, cauliflowers and cabbages. We are blessed to have many citrus, fruit and oak trees on the property. It all ends up on the plate. Chris soaks, dehydrates and mills the acorns from the oak trees into flour and from this he makes pasta. It is a labour-intensive process.
“We have an on-site truffle grove that produces the Perigord truffle; we developed the truffle weekends around this offering. The weekend allows truffle lovers to hunt for a truffle that they then get to enjoy for brunch. It is a great weekend that celebrates all that is brilliant about the region, produce, wine, the ancient magic of rural living.”
Wallingford is one of New Zealand’s oldest homesteads, established by the Ormond family in the 1800s. The original homestead did burn down in 1895, with the present house being rebuilt using the original footprint. In its day, it was the largest single-storey homestead in the Southern Hemisphere. The homestead is now a Wallingford experience — allowing guests to stay and indulge in a wrap-around culinary adventure.
Cuisine owner and editor Kelli Brett says, “Wherever we are across our beautiful country there are stand-out places that we enjoy eating at again and again. The places we’re excited to take friends or visitors to. The ones that consistently deliver great food, stand-out service and a quality experience. And we need to keep supporting them.”
There’s space for guests to chill and relax in the grand old rooms of the Wallingford Homestead.
“Dining out is all about making memories,” says Kelli.
Wallingford memories are on offer as part of this year’s Central Hawke’s Bay Spring Fling. The Wallingford Soiree offers a garden tour led by Keith, custodian of the Wallingford grounds, regaled by vignettes of Wallingford’s yesterdays, with foodie morsels prepared by Chris Stockdale, then a seat at the table on the lawn enjoying a drink and five tasting plates, before a grand tour of the old manor.
