This week we’re celebrating Aotearoa’s best beer brewers, learning to bake sourdough and wishing we were booking a spot at a luxurious wine weekend at Taupō’s Huka Lodge.
Enjoy food and wine-infused luxury at Huka Lodge’s Winemakers Weekend
Huka Lodge’s Winemakers Weekend returns this September with the luxury lodge (known
Onlslow has a hot-buttered rum trolley
Onslow loves a good trolley service (anyone who’s sampled the salmon trolley can attest to this), and now it’s introduced a hot-buttered rum trolley to the mix. Onslow describes a buttered rum as a “warming dessert cocktail with a hot butter emulsion whipped with allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg” and its version comes with your choice of rum. The cocktail will be prepared at your table once you’ve selected a rum — either a Plantation Smoked Pineapple Rum or an Appleton Rare Blend, a classic Jamaican rum. The team recommends pairing the hot-buttered rum with a lemon sponge pudding with chantilly cream, candied lemon and rum custard. 9 Princess St, Auckland CBD.
Results are in for the NZ Beer Awards
The 2023 New Zealand Beer Awards have been announced, brought to you by the Brewers Guild of New Zealand, with 825 entries across 15 classes of beer and two-and-a-half days of judging. New Zealand styles and juicy and hazy continued to be the largest proportion of entries, with ‘speciality and experimental’ and ‘fruit and flavoured’ the next most popular.
The Overall Champion New Zealand Brewing Company went to Warkworth’s 8 Wired Brewing for its dedication to quality and beers that the judges say are as drinkable as they are unique. “8 Wired was born in 2009, when New Zealand’s craft beer revolution was still in its infancy. Beginning as they meant to go on, embracing the classic Kiwi qualities of ingenuity and innovation and putting out bold, experimental styles that no one else in the country was brewing,” say the judging notes of the winning brewery. 8 Wired also took out the Champion New Zealand Beer for its Wild Feijoa 2022, a sour pale ale aged for two years in wine barrels and infused with organic feijoas from Quinta Feijoas.
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New local cookbook Good Vibes hits shelves
Alby Hailes’ new book Good Vibes, eat well with feel-good flavours is out this week, published by HarperCollins NZ, $55. Dunedin-based cook Alby is all about food that makes us feel good, and the aptly title Good Vibes is his second cookbook after his blog-turned-book Scarfie Kitchen was published in 2016. Alby can not only cook, but bake too, taking out the Great Kiwi Bakeoff in 2021. In Good Vibes he’s focussing on vegetable-laden dishes like turmeric potatoes with crispy kawakawa and green olive hummus; vegan burgers and larb-stuffed kumara. There’s also a fair share of sweet recipes, with a particularly good-looking lime cake with coconut topping; salted chocolate cookies and matcha and pistachio amaretti. Viva has two of Alby’s recipes to try, including a silky pannacotta and a throw-together noodle dish.
Learn to make sourdough with Bread & Butter bakery
Grey Lynn’s Bread & Butter bakery and cafe is celebrating 10 years in Auckland by reintroducing its popular sourdough masterclasses. Founder and owner Isabel Pasch, who opened Bread & Butter in 2013, has launched a series of organic sourdough masterclasses, starting from tomorrow (Wednesday, Aug 9). The sourdough masterclasses will run from 5pm to 8pm every Wednesday evening until September 27 and are limited to 10 people at a cost of $150 per person which includes a drink, pizza, bread to take home, a sourdough starter and instructions for using it. Led by Isabel and one of her senior bakers, each class will teach a recipe that can be used for loaves, rolls, baguettes, pizzas, and even cake. Participants will also receive a recipe book, plus their own live starter culture to take home and use for their own creations. For more information about the class and bookings, see Breadandbutter.nz.
A new gourmet range from Raglan Food Co
Coconut yoghurt purveyor Raglan Food Co has a new range of gourmet yoghurts, “perfect for when you’re in the mood for something a little bit fancy”. There are six new flavours including blackcurrant, Greek-style, luscious lemon, vanilla bean and raspberry. The Viva team can confirm the vanilla bean is ultra creamy with a great amount of natural vanilla bean flavour, and the fruit flavours have generous swirls of real fruit through them. The yoghurts come in 400g pottles and the flavours are lovely enough to enjoy on their own, or add them to granola or fruit. $7.90 from supermarkets and independent stores.
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So you want a decent inner-city Auckland work lunch on-the-go?
Viva to the rescue. We’ve put together a round-up of suggestions for time-strapped 9-5ers looking for a reliable lunch on a busy workday. From a quick takeaway sandwich to a salad you can order ahead, or a spot at a bustling CBD eatery where you can enjoy an express lunch and a hot coffee. Find a collection of inner-city lunches that will brighten the darkest of corporate blowouts here.
This week, the Viva team has been eating (and drinking)...
The New York Cheesecake from Atelier Shu
“As a birthday treat recently, I went to this sweet spot in Faraday St in Parnell. There are a few great mini cakes on offer, but its New York Cheesecake is not to be missed with its creamy fresh filling. You can opt for one if its freshly brewed teas, but the grapefruit and earl grey ice tea with lots of ice was a refreshing complement to cut right through the indulgence.” 1 Faraday St, Parnell — Dan Ahwa, fashion and creative director
A Brazilian feast from The Butcher Baker
“I sampled a multi-course Brazilian feast from Helensville restaurant The Butcher Baker as part of Elemental AKL’s Feast of Legends dinner series, which saw four chefs cook food from their homeland, and celebrate their inspirational culinary journeys. For Butcher Baker’s Reginaldo Richard, that meant a menu of Brazilian plates like conxhia (slow-cooked chicken marinated in house spices), crispy pork belly with fresh lime and feijoada tradicional (a rich stew of black beans with smoked pork ribs, sausages, beef and pancetta and topped with herbs). The dish of the night was moqueca de peixe: freshly caught flounder in a luscious coconut sauce with onions, tomato capsicum and coriander, served on a bed of rice. What a night!” 5 Commercial Rd, Helensville — Johanna Thornton, deputy editor
Romeos’ tuna melt
“My boyfriend and I have been eating across Wellington since he moved there. This weekend, we went to Romeos, a small, always-busy deli that specialises in coffee and a considered selection of sandwiches. We both tried the hunking (and unreal) tuna melt: the bread, crispened on the outside yet still pillow-soft and cut into thick slices, the tuna flecked with red onion and celery and ample, just-toasted cheese.” 3/126 Vivial St, Te Aro, Wellington — Julia Gessler, digital editor
