How a Generation of Young Chefs Is Turning New Zealand Into the Next Hot Food Destination

Travel + Leisure

9 hours ago

If, by some miracle of time travel, you journeyed back a millennium to what would one day become New Zealand, you would find no humans, no sheep, and no other land mammals except for two types of bat. The 700-island archipelago was settled in the 1200s by Polynesian seafarers—ancestors of today's Māori—who brought kumara (sweet potatoes), taro, and yams. From left: Beau, located in the suburb of Ponsonby; Wharekauhau Country Estate.
The British, who first arrived with Captain James Cook in 1769, introduced grapevines, cows, and pigs. The settlers turned New Zealand, with its fertile land and rolling hills, into an agricultural powerhouse that today yields superb meat, wine, and dairy products. (This nation of just 5.3 million people exports more milk than any other.) But while Kiwi produce has found its way into kitchens worldwide—my husband, Tristan, and I buy New Zealand butter at our local Costco in Grand Rapids, Michigan—its cuisine has garnered less recognition. From left: Chef Robert Fairs at Londo; brûléed figs with labneh, a dish on the restaurant's tasting menu.
Perhaps that's because Kiwi cookery defies easy definition. A few decades ago, it could have been characterized as an old-school derivative of British food—meat and potatoes, fish-and-chips, perhaps a pavlova for dessert. But waves of immigration—nearly a third of today's New Zealanders were born elsewhere—have vastly diversified New Zealand's palate. Last year, 91 restaurants were honored with Cuisine magazine 'hats,' the Michelin star's Kiwi cousin. Among them, you'll find places serving French, Samoan, Indian, Japanese, and Cuban food, as well as abundant fusion cooking.
In February, Tristan and I embarked on a two-week culinary tour of the archipelago. We began in Auckland, the largest city, then worked our way down the North Island before finishing in Christchurch, on the South Island. Along the way, we met and tasted the food of a rising generation of chefs and producers who celebrate their nation's bounty, yet still often struggle to explain what unifies its cooking. Arthur's Pass and Lake Pearson, as seen from Flockhill.
What exactly is New Zealand cuisine? We tried to eat our way toward an answer.
On our first night in Auckland, we dined at Pici, a tiny pasta bar tucked inside a 1920s shopping arcade on Karangahape Road. K-Road, once one of the city's prime shopping streets, later became a red-light district; today it's in transition, with sleek cafés situated alongside tattoo parlors and vape shops.
The deep flavors of the tuna carpaccio, a special that evening, and the pici cacio e pepe, chef Jono Thevenard's signature dish, left us marveling. The next day, I asked Thevenard whether Pici was an Italian restaurant—not an outlandish question, given the menu. 'No,' he said. 'I'm not Italian.' His mother lived in Italy for a spell, and while he felt an affinity for rustic Italian cuisine, particularly its veneration of fresh ingredients, his kitchen, he insisted, was thoroughly Kiwi. From left: Picnicking at Flockhill, a luxury lodge on a sheep station outside Christchurch; 'Flockhill preserves,' a dish of pickled and fermented vegetables at Sugarloaf at Flockhill.
I replayed our meal in my head: we'd also had stracciatella with heirloom tomatoes and an excellent fettuccine alle vongole . Thevenard redirected me from the dishes' names to the ingredients' origins. The tuna? He saw an albacore on a fisherman friend's Instagram feed and asked to buy it. His olive oil? From a neighbor 150 miles north of Auckland, 'up where my mom lives, outside the town of Kerikeri.' His rosemary and thyme come from plants he installed, guerrilla-style, in the park behind the shopping arcade. New Zealand cuisine, he said, 'is what you can forage, what you can hunt, what you can get from the garden and the forest.'
Beyond Pici, Thevenard has leaned in to that spirit, and his Māori heritage, by collaborating with his friend Kia Kanuta on pop-up feasts. These meals, prepared using a traditional pit-cooking method called hāngī, feature roasted pig, kumara, and other Māori staples.
In 2024, Kanuta won the Lewisham Award, given annually to Auckland's best chef, for his work at Ada Restaurant, one of the few high-end Auckland establishments celebrating Māori cuisine. But he quit at year's end, partly from exhaustion and partly because he felt Ada was inaccessible to his fellow Māori. 'I love cooking for my people,' he said, 'and you want to be a credit to your people.' From left: Claire Edwards of the South Wairarapa–based seafood supplier Tora Collective; chef Jono Thevenard, left, at his Auckland restaurant, Pici, with collaborator Kia Kanuta.
Aside from his collaborations with Thevenard, Kanuta now cooks a couple of days a week at an Auckland soup kitchen. To him, this is inherently Kiwi—not just venerable techniques and heirloom ingredients but also layered relationships and communal care. 'You need connection,' he told me, 'to people and to the land.'
'Do you know the word whakapapa ?' restaurateur Diva Giles asked when I visited Beau, the Auckland wine bar and deli she runs with chef Logan Birch.
I didn't.
'It's a blend of outside stuff and inside stuff,' Birch said. From left: The Chef's Table at Blue Duck Station; short-fin eel with nasturtiums at the Chef's Table.
Whakapapa—literally, 'to layer'—usually refers to one's genealogy. But it can also be used to map all that shapes a person—culture, context, geography. Giles's whakapapa is paternally British and maternally Māori. In culinary terms, it includes the years she and Birch spent working in London and Paris restaurants and what they've learned from their Filipino and Indian colleagues at Beau. Whakapapa honors the interweaving of stories, and it recognizes the interdependence of all things.
With that conceptual seed planted, I began to notice how diverse cultural influences could meld with New Zealand's bounty to inspire the surprising and the new. At the French Café, an Auckland institution now stewarded by Indian immigrants Sid and Chand Sahrawat, ribs of lamb—that quintessentially Kiwi meat—came with chili-tamarind sauce and fennel kimchi. At Kingi, Tom Hishon's seafood-centric restaurant in the Hotel Britomart, a taco cradled plump pieces of crayfish. At the Blue Rose Cafe, classic hāngī ingredients—pork, kumara, pumpkin—nestled neatly in that most traditional British carrying case, a pie crust.
I began to notice how diverse cultural influences could meld with New Zealand's bounty to inspire the surprising and the new.
It all made delectable sense, and it all made me crave a closer experience of the land (and sea) that fostered such abundance. After four days in Auckland, we flew south to Rotorua, then drove four hours to Blue Duck Station, a ranch that neighbors Whanganui National Park. The Whanganui River winds past the property, which is home to 3,500 breeding ewes and herds of red and fallow deer. After showing us around the ranch by ATV, station proprietor Dan Steele insisted we see things from a different perspective—by speedboat. From left: Chef Giulio Sturla with his dog, Guapa, at Mapu Test Kitchen, in Lyttleton; Mapu's mushroom ice cream.
One Māori legend recounts how the loneliness of the mountain Ruapehu moved the sky father, Ranginui. One heaven-sent teardrop, and the Whanganui River began flowing. Lushly forested slopes rise steeply from both banks to form verdant canyons, and to our untrained eyes, the scene appeared pristine. 'It's not,' Steele said. As we sped downstream, he pointed out species that arrived with immigrants and settled in: walnut trees from Japan, acacias from Australia, blackberries planted by the English for a jammy taste of home. Feral goats once proliferated (Captain Cook brought them in 1773). After the goats were culled, locals realized that solving one problem had magnified another. 'The goats had been eating the blackberry, which is now threatening to choke the watercourses,' Steele said.
The sheer scale of this ecological puzzle has forced Steele to pick his proverbial battles. One priority is to save the endangered whio, the blue duck for which the station is named. It lives only in New Zealand, and fewer than 1,000 breeding pairs remain. Traps dotting the station target the bird's non-native predators—ferrets, stoats, rats.
Steele suddenly slowed the boat and told us to look for the whio 's distinctive white beak. 'I'll give you 30 seconds.' All I saw were rocks in shades of brown and gray. Then two rocks near the riverbank quivered, and my eye caught two moving, white cursors: a pair of whio .
This couple, I learned, has inhabited roughly the same spot for five years. Steele has been rallying his neighbors to reinvigorate native forest, stem agricultural runoff, and cleanse the Whanganui. The ducks' presence reflects some progress. 'The river is healing enough to sustain them, but they also haven't produced any ducklings,' Steele said. Still, they're fine ambassadors. 'I want to inspire people to do good things for the environment, but how do you do that if you don't get them into that environment? You've got to have a 'wow' factor. For a lot of people, a trip down the Whanganui River is not on their radar, but fine dining is.' From left: The garden salad at the Chef's Table, the restaurant at Blue Duck Station; co-owner and chef Jack Cashmore.
In 2021, Steele opened the Chef's Table at Blue Duck Station, a 10-seat restaurant on one of the property's highest peaks, with British-born Jack Cashmore as co-owner and head chef. Accessing the restaurant, five miles uphill from base camp, requires either a strenuous two- to three-hour hike or a 20-minute ATV ride. Four elegant cabins, linked to the restaurant by boardwalks, provide overnight accommodations.
The Chef's Table is a wood-paneled jewel box. The tables face floor-to-ceiling windows that offer dramatic views of Whanganui National Park. There's just one seating each night, and Cashmore's tasting menu always has at least 10 courses—on our visit, it was 13. 'Fifty to sixty percent of our ingredients come from the station itself,' he said as he cooked. Foraged fungi became a mushroom 'biscuit,' the most beautiful cookie I'd ever seen, featuring cèpe cream sandwiched between two crisp rounds of mushroom tuile. What looked like melon balls were actually the tender stems of mamaku (native tree fern), bathed in onion broth and finished with oil made from kawakawa (New Zealand pepper), which the Māori revere for its healing properties.
Every dish was surprising. Cashmore's savory baked custard was both a culinary triumph and a conservation effort: he topped silky custard with diced green pumpkin and jelly spheres resembling salmon eggs. Taste one, though, and you'll know it has nothing to do with the sea. The jelly is made from pheasant and rabbit—both invasive species—stewed with sherry and herbs. The broth is then strained and set with agar.
Foraged fungi became a mushroom 'biscuit,' the most beautiful cookie I'd ever seen.
Sid Sahrawat, one of New Zealand's most celebrated chefs, visited the Chef's Table in 2022; he told me he found it 'inspiring.' Steele hopes Cashmore's cooking will inspire delight, yes, but also curiosity and care. 'This is a biodiversity hot spot. It has a lot of issues, but we're trying to fix them,' he said. 'Without a healthy environment, we will not have healthy food.' From left: Chef Taylor Cullen in the kitchen; venison heart fermented in honey at Sugarloaf.
From Blue Duck Station, we drove six hours to the Wairarapa, a rural region in the North Island's southeasternmost corner, to the Wharekauhau Country Estate. Located on a 3,000-acre sheep station, Wharekauhau is a grande dame among New Zealand's lodges. Its 17 sumptuously furnished cottages overlook Palliser Bay, and its acclaimed kitchen draws heavily on what's grown and foraged on the property.
One afternoon, we met chef Norka Mella Muñoz in an outdoor kitchen tucked in a shady dale. While making lunch, she recounted her childhood in Chile, where her parents sold clothes in a market. Her culinary training began at 13, when she befriended a fishmonger who taught her how to clean fish. She landed in New Zealand in 2003, intending to learn English and save some money to continue traveling. She never left. 'Chile is more male-oriented,' she said. 'Here, for a woman, there are opportunities. Now it's home.' (In April, Muñoz departed Wharekauhau to become executive chef at the nearby Palliser Estate winery.)
Our starter was paua (blackfoot abalone) three ways—creamed, pan-fried, and made into sausage. For our main, Muñoz grilled butterfish, which she finished with shallot-and-caper beurre blanc and served with vegetables from Wharekauhau's garden—potatoes, broccoli, carrots ('we have so many carrots right now,' she said). From left: Troy Bramley, co-owner of Tora Collective; beach-barbecued crayfish with seaweed butter at Tora Collective.
The paua came from Tora Collective, a boutique seafood outfit that had also caught the crayfish in the taco we'd eaten at Kingi in Auckland. I told Muñoz that Tora's proprietors, Claire Edwards and Troy Bramley, had invited me to go fishing. 'Tell them I want kina !' she said, using the Māori word for sea urchin.
Before dawn the next day, I set off for Tora, a hamlet on the Pacific coast. After a harrowing 90-minute drive on narrow roads twisting through the coastal mountains, the vista from Edwards and Bramley's oceanfront home restored my spirit; the hills shone and the water sparkled in the early morning sun. As Edwards and I walked to the rocky shore to harvest seaweed, she told me that they can host guests who sign up to be temporary crew members on Bramley's fishing boat. 'We want our visitors to have the experience we grew up with,' she said. 'Diving with our parents, grilling on the beach—we had a real connection with this raw, breathtaking beauty.'
Raw and breathtaking was right: as the wind gusted and I focused on staying upright on the rocks, Edwards scooped armfuls of seaweed into her crate. I didn't harvest a single piece. 'All good!' she said brightly. 'Let's get you to the boat.' From left: A crayfish taco at Kingi, in Auckland; the interior of Kingi.
We found Bramley on a nearby beach with his assistant, Bailey Morris, whose grandfather was one of the first people to harvest crayfish in these waters. They backed the boat out, and we motored to nearby traps. Bramley pulled one, then began sorting crayfish according to the official regulations and his personal rules.
Though paua has no official off-season, he doesn't harvest from August to early October, when they spawn. Abiding with Māori tradition, he dives for kina only while the pōhutukawa tree flowers—roughly October to January. Crayfish must have tails at least 54 millimeters wide to be taken legally; Bramley also throws all females back. 'One female can produce 500,000 eggs,' he said. Harvesting females undermines his future catch. 'It seems so simple to me.'
When we got back to their house, Bramley and Edwards divvied up the day's haul to dispatch to restaurants across New Zealand. Then Edwards tucked two crayfish and two kina into a box for me. With a hug and orders to refrigerate the seafood as soon as possible, she sent me back to Wharekauhau.
I found Muñoz in the kitchen. 'Is that what I hope it is?' she said. She opened the box and shrieked in delight. From left: Logan Birch and Diva Giles, co-owners of the Auckland wine bar Beau; pan-fried bluenose fish with squid-ink fregola, at Beau.
That evening, she poached a crayfish for us, halved it, bathed it in butter, and showered it with herbs. As we ate, I remembered watching that crayfish emerge from the ocean and hearing the story of the chef who cooked it. Would you believe me if I said that the memories deepened the dish's flavor? Regardless, it was delicious.
What is New Zealand cuisine? Everyone we met had a different answer.
Norka Mella Muñoz: 'Evolving.'
Sid Sahrawat: 'An amalgamation.'
Claire Edwards: 'Place, person, produce—a story in a mouthful.'
I suppose an American traveler shouldn't find such disparate replies unusual. Isn't American cuisine also a cornucopia and a work in constant progress?
Our penultimate stop was Flockhill, an ultra-luxury retreat that opened last December on a 36,000-acre sheep station in the Southern Alps, a 90-minute drive from Christchurch. The main lodge, a barn-style building that houses the restaurant Sugarloaf and an impressive bar, centers on a massive hearth that both literally and figuratively radiates warmth. Each of its 14 suites has a private deck and a wall of glass affording views of the surrounding mountains. (On a nearby hilltop, there's also a four-bedroom villa called the Homestead, which comes with its own private chef.) From left: Gazpacho with raw kingfish at Londo, a Christchurch restaurant; a painted mushroom design on the dining-room window of Forest, in Auckland.
I signed up for one of Flockhill's signature experiences, which invites guests to harvest and cook alongside chef Taylor Cullen. He has spent the past three years hiking Flockhill's grounds, observing what grows wild, and establishing a garden. From his raised beds, we picked fennel, blackberries, and strawberries. (He'd found the strawberry plants in a nearby valley and transplanted them.) Near the railroad tracks—the famed TranzAlpine train crosses the property—he discovered pear and apple trees. 'I think they're heritage,' he said, speculating that they grew from discarded cores. 'I reckon people just threw things off the train.'
When I asked if he had a signature dish, he paused and then said, 'Flockhill preserves.' Perhaps he hesitated because it's less a dish than a one-plate showcase of things that grow on the property. 'You eat the land, basically,' he said.
The foraging experience segued into a 10-course meal, some of which I'd helped to prepare. 'Flockhill preserves' was our sixth course, after sourdough made from 'Greta,' his five-year-old starter, and before a fermented-corn fritter cooked in beef fat. Arrayed on the platter were 14 items, including pickled radishes, pine-bud capers, and my fennel and berries. 'Look!' I proudly told Tristan. 'I picked those.' From left: Sarah Tabak and Ben Eyres, co-owners of Beabea's, an Auckland bakery; steak-and-cheese pie at Beabea's.
On our last night in New Zealand, we visited Giulio Sturla's Mapu Test Kitchen, in the Christchurch suburb of Lyttelton. In 2015, Sturla founded Eat New Zealand, a nonprofit devoted to defining Kiwi cuisine. 'New Zealand is the biggest testing ground for new flavors in the world,' he said. 'Everyone here has come from somewhere else, even Māori.'
Sturla embodies New Zealand's hybridity. Born into an Italian family in Chile and raised in Ecuador, he arrived in New Zealand in 2008 and now holds a Kiwi passport. 'I'm a person from everywhere. My ideas come from every single place I have lived. Those flavors are in this kitchen, but with New Zealand ingredients.'
Sturla insists Mapu is a kitchen, not a restaurant. It doesn't have regular hours. There's no menu. He is its entire staff—chef, manager, sommelier, dishwasher. Each morning, he peruses the garden out back and gathers what looks good. Then he raids his pantry and fridge and cooks. From left: A few of the 10,000-plus sheep at Flockhill; a guest room at Flockhill with a view of Purple Hill.
From the first course, his disregard of normal culinary boundaries was clear. He'd baked a cracker made from vegetables barbecued until ashen, which he topped with a salad of dehydrated cherry tomatoes, preserved rose petals, and cherry blossoms, along with blackberries and purple shiso from his garden. When he recited the ingredients, it seemed nonsensical. A bite, and everything sang—sweet, sour, and salty flavors arranged in exquisite harmony.
That morning, after taking his daughter to 6 a.m. swim practice, Sturla had foraged porcini in a Christchurch park. ('A very good time to go mushroom hunting,' he said.) He cooked the mushrooms in a sauce made from an earlier harvest of porcini, which he'd aged to a miso-like consistency and depth. ('We don't have soy in New Zealand.') Then he paired the mushrooms with crisped slices of blue potato and finished it all with a spinach 'cream' made from pine-nut milk.
Toward the end of the 10-course feast, Tristan said, 'This is the best meal we've had.' Sturla smiled. Nothing we ate at Mapu was familiar, yet everything tasted comforting, like home. What strange magic was this? 'It's just New Zealand,' Sturla said. 'New Zealand is an ingredient. This land is unique, so whatever grows here is unique. That's why New Zealand tastes so good.'
A version of this story first appeared in the September 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Land of Plenty ."