New Zealand: Fresh & Very Welcoming

 
Over the last 15 years, New Zealand has witnessed a spectacular rise in eating out everywhere from top hotels and restaurants to cafés, bistros and bars. Kiwis are eager to trynew tastes and exotic food, whether created by top class chefs in luxury hotels or food-lovers in boutique lodges. A survey of current trends in the New Zealand food and restaurant industry, complemented by portraits of two Auckland landmark hotels.
 

 
Culinary tourism, i.e. food and wine trips and specialist tours entirely devoted to eating, is on the rise. Working in restaurant kitchens has become more acceptable, especially as TV chefs are the new stars and darlings of the media. Let's take a look behind this obsession with food and find out what trends are emerging from it.
 
Globalisation.
There are two major factors contributing to the globalisation of food: migration and travel. People from Asia, the Pacific Islands or Europe migrating to New Zealand have adapted their food habits to their new country, bringing in new ideas and directions to food. As do the travel-loving Kiwis themselves. When they return home from their overseas trips, they startlooking around for the products they have enjoyed on their journeys. "We have that cultural cringe," says Mike Egan, CEO of the NZ Restaurant Association. "We think everybody in the worlddoes it better than we." Which, of course, is not true. When it comes to innovation or experimenting with different flavours, the Kiwis are hard to beat. This might be due to the fact that New Zealand is a relatively young country without long traditions or food history. "We can invent things as we go," says Egan. When Josselin de Gesincourt arrived in New Zealand a couple of years ago, hardly anybody knew what a sommelier did. It did not take French-born Gesincourt long to get into contact with the restaurant industry, and it was only a little while later that the then newly refurbished Partingtons restaurant was courageous enough to give the sommelier a go. "Kiwis are very welcoming," says Gesincourt, who comes from a wine-growing family in Burgundy. Be it wine or food, the openness with which new culinary ideas are embraced is outstanding. Whether Asian cuisine, ideas from other South Pacific islands or trends from California, Kiwis like to try things out. If it tastes good, it grows.
 

 
Regionalisation.
The counter trend to globalisation is regionalism and the conscious retention of authentic local cuisines. "Freshness is the key word," says Egan. People have developed an awareness of where food comes from, he observes. "Think global but eat local is maybe a cliché," concludes Food editor Lauraine Jacobs, "but it is fast becoming part of the consumer psyche." Everywhere you travel in New Zealand you will see regional identity emerging: salmon and mussels from the Marlborough district, apricots and saffron and walnuts from Central Otago or the famous Bluff oyster. Ruth Pretty, a household name in New Zealand for her creative Event Catering Company, agrees with the idea of regionalism. When she is hired for a corporate catering event she quite often is asked to present a very NZ oriented menu, like lamb racks with Manuka honey dressing or scampi tails, crayfish, and scallops fresh from the ocean.
 

 
| 14 February 2007 |