AN EXTRAORDINARY FOOD DESTINATION THAT’S TOO HUMBLE he says. Simple food does not mean it is any less complicated. It is often one or two flavours on the plate that just merge. For his restaurant, Depot, he sought inspiration from his upbringing to mix the informality and togetherness of the days at the bach with the flavours of good New Zealand food. Even the glassware is bach-like…stemmed wine glasses are left off the order list and tumblers brought in. “People drink wine from plastic cups at events – at least I was going to have glass. Pour the wine and the fun will follow,” Brown says. He wanted people to be happy, elbows on the table when the food arrived, and the food the subject of the conversation. “MAORI FOOD CAN BE MORE THAN A HANGI”… IF YOU CAN SOURCE INGREDIENTS www.foodtechnology.co.nz 19 New Zealand has the best food in the world, according to chef, television presenter and restauranteur Al Brown. The wellknown chef, who grew up on a Wairarapa farm, says when he thinks about his upbringing and food, he thinks of the family’s two gooseberry bushes, pulling carrots out of the ground and picking mint. His family had an old caravan nicknamed the ‘pie-cart’ which they took on holidays to Castlepoint. They would forage or fossick around in the rockpools for paua, and speared flounder in the estuary, getting out the 44 litre drum, he says. “Looking back now I realised my connection to the land was very powerful and I didn’t realise how important it was,” Brown says. “Now I realise how profound my upbringing was.” In New Zealand you could hop off a plane, collect shellfish off the beach and cook it on corrugated iron two hours later, he says. That is the kind of New Zealand that we should be promoting… an extraordinary food destination. It is already famous for its delicious cakes and slices. “I have always been fond of sweet things. I don’t know if it is the great eggs or butter,” Brown says. “Our baking is something to be proud of. We are so humble about things like that. So baking is something I always talk about.” The proximity to where products are grown and harvested, and the short distance it takes to get it to the plate is an “ace card”, Otago Polytechnic journalism student Julie Howard caught up with “culinary nomad” Monique Fiso before the opening of Hiakai at the conference. Corn icecream, paua porridge and kumara curd with a traditional steam pudding are risky and a bit scary for cook Monique Fiso (28), back in New Zealand to open ‘Hiakai’… her first pop-up restaurant. Hiakai (which means hungry or craving for food) is showcasing and elevating Maori cuisine and techniques into the public spotlight, and the US-based former Porirua cook admits it was a little nerve-wracking launching it at an international food design event. The pop-up restaurant is a Maori dining experience and a joint project between Fiso and chef Kane Bambery in which they explore Maori cuisine, its ingredients and techniques. It was launched at Dunedin’s Bracken restaurant. Fiso – who has felt the heat in some of New Zealand and New York’s top kitchens including the Michelin-starred The Musket Room, PUBLIC restaurant, A Voce, Martin Bosley’s and Cuisine Restaurant of the Year winners Roots Restaurant – felt pretty nervous displaying her creations in front of industry bigwigs. Hiakai featured a five-course menu based on a variety of kaimoana collected from the Otago coast, with wines to match. Plates of kina on toast, pickled mussels, old-school Maori pickle, blue cod fish collars, and steamed fish with cockles and bull kelp were on the menu on launch night. The traditional steam pudding offered on the marae was transformed with kumara. “In the short time Hiakai has been going, it has started this whole conversation, and other chefs are starting to look at it on Instagram and starting to take it seriously,” Fiso says. “Maori food can be more than a hangi.” But sourcing ingredients has been tough, she says. “It’s been a lot harder than I thought it would be. You can’t find the ingredients easily. We are a Maori food pop-up in Aotearoa and we can’t even get the food.” In New York she had her spreadsheet and made a simple phone call to suppliers who delivered ingredients straight to the restaurant door. In good old Kiwi fashion, she had sourced ingredients by calling a guy who By Julie Howard called a guy, or was told someone had ingredients in their garden and would drop it off, or went somewhere odd and gave a koha, she says. Despite Fiso’s concerns, she was pleased with how her first pop-up Hiakai went. “There was a lot of positive feedback so I’m quite pleased.There’s a ton of stuff I’d do differently next time but all in all, it was a good first night.” As for now, she is living out of a suitcase for the foreseeable future. Her next stop is Singapore to help out Michelin-star chef Matt Lambert, and Mexico features on her itinerary, but she’ll popping back to New Zealand for the odd pop up Hiakai. “I am a cook. A culinary nomad.” Al Brown Monique Fiso
FT-Jul16
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