For those people thinking of where to come when they visit New Zealand, here's a few ideas from this week's Observer. Many of these places are in striking distance of Domestic Executive HQ.
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From fine dining in Wellington to seafood shacks on the beach, Emma John takes a gastronomic road trip across New Zealand and finds a food revolution under way
Emma John, The Observer, Sunday February 10 2008
People go to New Zealand for lots of reasons: the outstanding scenery; the skiing in the South Island; the beaches in the North; the delusion that they're going to encounter a hobbit. But there was one thing that no one, ever, went for - the food. Until recently, if you had asked for Kiwi cuisine you would probably have been served a sloppy shepherd's pie or a throat-laceratingly dry roast. Any local could tell you that there were 10 times more sheep than people on the two islands, but that didn't mean they knew how to cook them.
Thanks partly to its wine boom, and partly to a generation of Kiwis with well-travelled tastebuds, New Zealand has begun to realise its own potential, from its wealth of seafood to its locally reared farm produce. My friend Matthew and I have arrived for a two-week road trip with a simple plan: to spend a week exploring the local flavours before attempting to recreate them ourselves. In other words, a week of five-star indulgence, followed by a week in a camper van with a tin opener.
In Wellington, where we begin our culinary exploration, we discover what must be the most civilised introduction to a place: a walking tour of foodie haunts, with plenty of tastings along the way. Small and pedestrian-friendly, Wellington likes to trumpet its cafe culture, and Cathy Cordwell, who runs 'Zest Food Tours', knows all the good spots. Our three-hour meet-and-eat walk shows us the relaxed and aspirational side of the city, where young Kiwi guys and girls mooch about over their 'flat white' - espresso with steamed milk - and butchers dispense tips on how to hang lamb until it's curling off the bone. At an indoor market, we're introduced to the indigenous fruit and veg: the kumara, a sort of sweet potato; bright red yams that look like witchety grubs; and golden kiwi fruit, sweeter and softer than their sharp green cousins.
'I remember going to Britain in 1988,' says Cathy, 'and thinking I didn't want to come back, because in New Zealand we had no cafes, no delis, no good food.' The most adventurous cooking came from overseas: restaurants were invariably French or Chinese. Now Wellington boasts four fine-dining restaurants that could hold their own in any metropolis. Over-ambitious, we attempt two in one day, Logan Brown for lunch, and Rex Morgan's award-winning Citron for dinner. Half way through Citron's nine-course extravaganza, we realise we've attempted a feat that would make Michael Winner blanch; although undeniably tasty, the tasting menu feels rather like a month-long siege. By the time we reach the cheese course, Matthew has fallen asleep at the table.
An hour and a half from Wellington is the Wairarapa valley, a weekend retreat for Welly's middle classes and a gastronome's paradise. Once beyond the hills that encircle the city, we drive past cattle fields until we reach Martinborough, whose main street is lined with bakeries and cheese shops; a dozen or more boutique wineries cluster within walking distance. In the early 1980s a handful of winemakers were drawn here by the soil and climate; Ata Rangi, Dry River and Martinborough vineyards are now making some of the best Pinot Noir wine in the world.
A short drive further north is Greytown, all verandahs and clapboard, like some gentrified Wild West outpost. Among the antique shops and boutique B&Bs sits a tiny chocolaterie called Schoc, which creates savoury-sweet combinations even Willy Wonka might think twice about - apricot and rosemary, ginger and wasabi, lime and chilli. It's owned by an idiosyncratic pair called Roger and Murray, an erstwhile hippy, and a psychotherapist respectively, who have invented 'chocolate therapy' and claim they can decipher your personality by which flavours of chocolate you prefer. Matthew loves the strawberry flavours which, apparently, makes him kind, placid and accommodating. I'm an 'almond', the kind of person who wants things their way and will eat poor strawberry types for breakfast. All of which is true, and none of which bodes well for our upcoming week in the camper van.
We leave with a slab of strawberry-and-cracked pepper, and Murray's recipe for chocolate gravy, and head for the ferry across the Cook Strait to the South Island. Locals moan about the three-hour crossing and prefer the half-hour flight, but no visitor would want to miss what has to be one of the most beautiful ferry journeys in the world, through the Marlborough Sounds, a majestic series of fjord-like inlets that create a meandering coastline more than 1,500km long. After an overnight stop in Picton, a pretty little port town unfairly slighted by our Lonely Planet guide, we head east for New Zealand's most famous wine region: Marlborough.
Home to the New World's finest Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough is the commercial heartland of New Zealand winemaking, and with so much to sample, hiring a driver for the day seems a justifiable extravagance. My local pub serves a Marlborough wine called Spy Valley and I'm incredibly excited to discover that its tangled rows of vines are in fact planted next to a government intelligence-gathering base (although I'm even more excited to discover that it only costs £8 a bottle).
As well as the pungent, fruity delights of its Sauvignon, the region can boast the cooking of Hans Herzog, who won a Michelin star in Switzerland, but left for New Zealand to produce the kind of wine that ends up being sold at exclusive London restaurants for wallet-thumping sums. The restaurant on his estate, which he runs with his wife, is rumoured to be the best in the country, and very reasonably priced. Unfortunately, it's also only open for six months of the year, and we've managed to turn up two days early. We look enviously around its elegant interior and idyllic gardens, charmed all the while by Hans's wife Therese, and briefly meet Hans himself - a silent giant with Marlon Brando's brooding looks. Leaving them without supper is heartbreak.
In fact, so is leaving Marlborough. We've been staying at Old St Mary's Convent, a nunnery built at the turn of the 20th century, whose cells have been knocked through to create five luxury bedrooms; the refectory has rather cheekily become a gentlemen's billiards room and bar. It's certainly the plushest convent I've ever seen - I doubt many sisters have plasma screens, or rose petals in their toilet bowl - and I'm not that keen to leave it for our new home, the VW Camper now squatting obtrusively next to the deconsecrated chapel.
Motor homes are a frequent sight on New Zealand's single-lane highways, and most of the major companies can rent you a modern-day Tardis that includes kitchen, shower, toilet and bunkbeds. We, however, have gone for style over substance. Our camper van may only offer the basic bed, sink and gas canister, but it does have all-over graffiti, which means horrified locals can spot us from more than a mile away. The rental company, Escape, ('freedom to sleep around,' boasts its website) decorates each of its vans with a uniquely lurid paint job. Our design includes a snail, a butterfly and some magic mushrooms.
We take off down the east coast, leaving behind the beautifully manicured gardens of Marlborough for the wild coastal road to Kaikoura, which winds past goats on one side and seal colonies on the other. Crayfish is the local delicacy here, and we've been told that we will find it on sale at a roadside caravan called Cay's Crays. We spot it late in the day; a large bearded man with a grey ponytail is already packing away, and Matthew makes the mistake of asking if he is the eponymous Cay. 'Do I look like a Cay?' he snorts. Swiftly purchasing the biggest creature we can see, we hand over $50 (£20) and retreat to the van to suck delicious slivers of meat out of the pincers - tough on the hands, tender on the tongue.
One great incentive to roam, on any New Zealand road trip, is the extraordinary proximity of its different landscapes. A few hours' drive can take you almost anywhere, from the coastline to the snowline; you can eat prawns for breakfast on the beach, lunch on farmed venison on the plains, and drink your sundowner atop a 3,000ft mountain. Looking west from the beaches at Kaikoura we're tempted by the snowy peaks of the Southern Alps, so we head for Arthur's Pass, the steep and arduous road that crosses the island, via the Alps. And while our attempt to cook lamb fillet, kumara mash and chocolate gravy on the side of a mountain falls foul of the lashing rain (we end up cooking it in the kitchen of a local hostel), the weather is dry and bright by the time we arrive on the west coast, thanks to a strange South Island climactic quirk.
Our destination is Hokitika, one of the towns where you can still experience New Zealand's time-warp effect: the small arcades here are dotted with tearooms and the pace of life probably hasn't increased since the 1950s.
Blackboards everywhere advertise whitebait fritters; whitebait here isn't the crispy deep fried version you'd recognise, but small translucent fish the consistency of jelly, which you whisk into a frying pan with an egg and serve on toast. There's a vaguely illicit thrill to buying whitebait direct - coastal families sell it out of their kitchens, ziplocked in plastic bags and wrapped in newspaper. We purchase two packets of East Coast finest, drive up to the seafront, shelter the gas canister from the wind and fry up; then we sit eating them on the beach as the surf rolls in. On the same stretch of coast, when the morning tide goes out, you can gather green-lipped mussels, gigantic castanets hiding plump pillows of flesh; or, if you brave the cold of the ocean, snorkel for paua, the exotic shellfish that sell here for around $30 a kilo (although you're only allowed to harvest 10 a day).
The camper van has proven surprisingly cosy, at least once we discover the fan heater stowed away beneath the bed, and the gas cooker, basic as it is, has served us very well, handling everything from sirloin to stir-fry. But for all our DIY pride we want more: we want to forage. And so, for our last trick, we fly north to Rotorua, the North Island's Maori heartland, where Charles Royal, a Maori chef with 10 years of service as an army cook, promises to introduce us to some real bush tucker. Well, the pleasant stuff. We're not celebrities, after all.
We jump into his jeep and head out into the forests that surround Rotorua's volcanic lakes. There are, apparently, seven types of edible fern native to New Zealand, and much used in Maori food. While nature isn't my strong subject, even I can spot the famous fiddlehead fern, although I can't say I find it particularly flavoursome. Then there are herbs and peppers, and Charles is particularly excited to spot a manuka plant, which oozes a dewdrop of sap on each of its spiked leaves that can be gathered to make honey.
Happily, having gathered a few handfuls, we've earned a rest: Charles takes us to his favourite hot spring. Rotorua is a literal hot bed of geothermals; every lake, crater, and hole in the ground bubbles and steams. The town itself thrives on geothermal tourism: every new business is a spa, a mud bath or a beauty salon. But you don't have to venture far to find the springs themselves, and every weekend the locals head for a 'quiet little spot that they know'. We're gratified to know, as we slither into the warm water, that 10 minutes bobbing about in the mineral-rich water is considered a health-giving experience in itself. With all the overeating and liberal drinking, I successfully petition for half an hour.
Charles builds a fire and cooks us an alfresco meal of salmon in horopito (a spicy pepper) and unwraps a delicious flatbread cooked with ferns. The flavours are extraordinarily pungent and spread through parts of my mouth I didn't know even contained tastebuds. I try to explain the sensation, and Charles just smiles. 'These herbs are something special,' he says with a burp. 'They'll keep coming back all day.'
A foodie's New Zealand address book
·Zest Food Tours offers a number of food-themed walking tours around Wellington. The four-hour Walking Gourmet Tour, with lunch, costs $210 (£85). 00 64 4801 9198; zestfoodtours.co.nz
·Logan Brown restaurant in Wellington serves sophisticated bistro-style food in the stately interior of a 1920s bank. A three-course set lunch costs $39.50. 00 64 4801 5114; loganbrown.co.nz
·Citron Fine dining experience in an intimate, 30-seater venue in central Wellington. The degustation menu costs $78. 00 64 4801 6263
·Ata Rangi This award-winning Martinborough winery is run by Clive and Phyll Paton; the winery shop is open 1pm-3pm midweek and noon till 4pm at weekends. 00 64 6306 9570; atarangi.co.nz
·Schoc Chocolate This tiny confectionery shop in Greytown has a nationwide following. 00 64 6304 8960; chocolatetherapy.com
·Marlborough Travel runs all kinds of gourmet tours around Marlborough, including tailored wine tours. About $80 per adult for a half-day tour. 00 64 3577 9997; marlboroughtravel.co.nz
·Spy Valley Wines Leading family-owned Marlborough vineyard producing a full gamut of white and red wines. 00 64 3572 9840; spyvalleywine.co.nz
·Herzog World-acclaimed Marlborough winery and restaurant; three-course degustation menu $89. 00 64 3572 8770; herzog.co.nz
·Maorifood Trails Spend anything from one morning to a week in the Rotorua bush with chef Charles Royal learning about New Zealand's indigenous ingredients. 00 64 7345 3122; maorifood.com
Essentials
Emma Johns's trip was organised by Tourism New Zealand: newzealand.com
Air New Zealand (0800 028 4149; airnz.co.uk) has two flights a day to Auckland, via Hong Kong or Los Angeles.
For tailor-made packages visit airnewzealand.co.uk/holidays
Escape (00 64 21 2888 372; escaperentals.co.nz) hires camper vans from Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Queenstown and Wellington from $34 (£14) a day.
Old St Mary's Convent in Marlborough has five rooms (the honeymoon suite was the chapel), from $350 a night; 00 64 3570 5700; convent.co.nz
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