Did you even fine dine if you didn’t gnaw a quail’s claw?
From dumpling sandwiches to provenanced pigs and birds with their feet intact, it was a year of eating extremes. And now it’s summer.
Pour a mass-produced beer, pair your electric-powered road trip with a vegan pie and consider
Still life with claws
We used to eat our chicken in parts. Breast-thigh-drum-wing. Neat and inoffensive portions of protein for diners who preferred the middle ground. And we used to describe the people who ordered those cuts as boring. Chicken was as bland as the suburbs; as safe as three-bedroomed, weather-boarded houses.
But then, a few years back, international fine dining restaurants began to ruffle feathers. Suddenly, poultry was being served with its wings on and its claws out.
Now, that trend is home to roost in Aotearoa. Chicken feet used to be a treat reserved for yum char; today, you can’t order a quail without a side of curled toes. Perhaps the best incarnation of this delicious horror show was delivered to diners at Queenstown’s Amisfield Restaurant.
The “pâté de canard sauvage en croûte” looks like the beak-end of a paradise shelduck — but is actually black flax seed, black truffle, duck fat, cultured butter, cooked pâte brisée, cultured acidic cream, aerated duck liver parfait and confit of tongue slow cooked in its own dry aged fat. The liquid centre (which deliberately resembles blood) comprises Amisfield pinot noir, elderberry and black truffle.
Don’t stop there. Chef Vaughan Mabee and team have also created “the wild pūtangitangi palmate” — a slow-cooked, reconstructed foot that includes truffle claws.
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Advertise with NZME.A seat at the table
Once upon a pre-Covid time, going to a new restaurant required optimism and a back-up plan. Nobody took bookings and (if you were already paying for a babysitter and a ride-share from the suburbs) wisdom dictated waiting at least three months for the early crowds to clear.
The new norm is a walk-in/bookable split, but be prepared for the flipside — a time limit on your dining experience with many restaurants now requiring you to vacate your table within 90-120 minutes.
Tinned fish
This is not a tuna casserole in the office microwave situation (still banned). If your first taste of something from an Ortiz tin convinced you not all anchovies are created equal, then you’re probably already onboard the tinned fish board.
Pescetarian charcuterie is having a moment and we don’t mean a $2.60 can of lemon-pepper salmon. Tuna fillets packed in oil and whole small smoked or spiced sardines sell for $20-plus at specialist food shops like Auckland’s Cazador Deli.
MoVida — the Melbourne tapas institution that recently opened its first Aotearoa outpost — is among those hero’ing high-end fishy preserves. It takes longer to say “hand-filleted Ortiz Cantabrian artisan anchovy on crouton with smoked tomato sorbet” than it does to eat it, but we confidently predict this $8 bite is set for cult status on both sides of the Tasman.
The craft beer backlash?
The crazy hazy beery days of summer are upon us. If all that aluminium art is overwhelming and, frankly, you’re done with oyster-flavoured, kettle-soured, stone-fruit-scented brews, then fear not — the counterculture cavalry has arrived and it tastes like a mass-produced bogan beer, served in an upmarket bar. Irony tastes better by the dozen.
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Advertise with NZME.Okra
Why has it taken so long for this edible green seed pod to get an independent billing on restaurant menus? Blast it on a wood-fired grill and categorise it alongside asparagus (but more interesting) and padrons (but less risky).
Previously consigned to gumbo et al, okra was the new standalone vegetable hero of 2022. Auckland’s Madame George served it with spiced tomato, at Milenta it was blistered black and came with a black sesame mole and at Cassia the kitchen hedged its bets — a recent “seasonal medley” of all things green included okra AND asparagus.
The $25 cabbage
First, they came for the mac ‘n cheese. Chicken wings. Lamb shanks. Hamburgers. And, just when you thought the rich people might have run out of cheap things to make expensive, they rediscovered the cabbage.
Restaurants across the country are burning, saucing and charging a premium for the brassica that was once best known for its role in a certain fast food outlet’s coleslaw.
Find some favourite Auckland high-end iterations at Candela ($25 with ajo blanco and chilli jam), Gochu ($18 with roast seaweed butter) and Kol ($24 with smoked tomato and hazelnut).
The great (Auckland) outdoors
The country’s largest CBD is a street-level disaster. Rise above it in one of the brand-new rooftop-adjacent bars proliferating the city’s skyline.
If you can’t be beside the water, at least sip your afterwork negroni from a seat with a well-ventilated view of it. Recently opened options include Sunset Bar, Palmer Bar and Bar Albert.
Return of the carb
For every action there is an equal and opposite and sometimes even more extreme reaction. Make up for the ridiculousness of the bunless burger years with dumpling-stuffed sandwiches (a recent contender for Auckland’s Iconic Eats status from mostly-vegan cafe Fat Kitty) or fettuccine-filled toasties from Cheese on Toast, the city’s finest purveyors of, well, cheese on toast. Carbs are comfort and carbs-on-carbs are the weighted blankets of your lunch break.
Nobody does basic white bread better than Al Brown (Depot’s schnitzel and chicken at The Fed) but, across the country, speciality sandwich shops are popping up like it’s 1992 — minus the mung bean sprouts.
Think roast pumpkin, tahina, green sauce, cos, grilled peppers and crispy onions from K Rd’s Glorias and charred asparagus, lemon and garlic braised greens, mozzarella, parmesan, pesto, red pepper mayo and fresh basil from Cuba St’s Freds.
Also in the capital: Romeo’s Deli and Bar where the mackerel melts and pastrami on rye are New York without the terrible exchange rate.
Scared of bread? Get your potato carbs at Wellington’s Shepherd, where all mains come with bottomless fries or Takapuna’s Ajisen Ramen where the soup-topping options include a potato “cutlet”.
Miso, miso everywhere
The soup you sipped from a small bowl is now the not-so-secret ingredient in ice creams, butters, aioli, candies — and cocktails.
Go for the flavour, stay for the puns, a la “mi-so stormy” (white miso, ginger, dark rums, and bitters) at Auckland’s Masu, and Parasol & Swing Co’s “miso-serious” (scotch whiskey and pineapple rum).
Savoury is the new sweet and we bet no bartender anywhere is mourning the demise of the mojito.
Prestige poaka
This year’s Wellington on a Plate burger competition featured a $185 entry from Jardin Grill.
Ingredients included a Japanese Wagyu A5 beef patty with crayfish remoulade, free-range duck egg aioli, Sturia Oscietra caviar, Kāpiti Te Tihi Aged Cheddar, kawakawa tea-infused cucumber and tomato, baby gem lettuce, whiskey BBQ sauce, a 24ct gold plated milk bun — and housemade Kurobuta pork belly bacon.
Known internationally as the wagyu of pork, Kurobuta comes from Berkshire pigs, is highly fat-marbled and has a flavour profile described as “deep, nutty and sweet”. It’s currently being namechecked on menus up and down the country.
Tea-totaller wine?
In what’s being touted as a world first, Loveblock Vintners has replaced sulphur (the traditional wine preservative) with tannin extracted from green tea leaves.
Tasting notes for its 2022 Marlborough Tee Sauvignon Blanc (12.5% alcohol) run from mandarin and star fruit to cumin and basil (followed by layers of the usual peach-passionfruit-herbal suspects). It’s sauvignon blanc — but not as Marlborough usually makes it.
Cold custard
Creamy, custardy desserts are the ultimate in spoonable shareability. If you’re tiring of basque cheesecakes, creme caramels, tiramisu and trifle, consider going Greek.
Galaktoboureko is the filo pastry and cold semolina custard pudding cake of your dreams (in Auckland, compare and contrast at Gerome and Daphnes).
Fake it ‘til they buy it
Summer is for road trips and petrol station pies and, increasingly, those pies are treading gently on the planet. Pair your electric car with a faux mince and cheese pastry.
We have it on good authority that, this winter, at least one ski field-adjacent service station quietly dropped the “vegan” descriptor from its Impossible Mince & Cheese offering — and did a roaring trade with meat eaters who were none the wiser.
Five things we’d like to see less often
New cloth napkins — lovely until they leave lint all over your fancy black dinner pants.
Hybrid bar-restaurants that don’t serve hot caffeine — sometimes you want a long black, not an espresso martini.
“Droolworthy” — it is not, and never will be, a word.
Shared plates with no serving spoons — should we split the salad by hand?
Burrata — literally just a lump of cheese that spurts less well-formed cheese.
