FOOD & DRINK

Our traditional restaurants are impressing the discerning palates of our Australian cousins...

Mokoia Restaurant (the name means to tattoo a person) has no intention of serving up blase cuisine. "We don't want an experience you can have anywhere else," says Haydn Marriner, a Maori and member of the Wai Ora Group, which runs the restaurant. "That would defeat the purpose of travel."

The chunky pikopiko pesto resembles its basil-based cousin and easily charms the palate. Ground into a vivid green paste, the tips of the pikopiko fern fronds are no longer recognisable, but they retain the strong, soil-infused taste of a plant plucked from the earth and placed directly in the mouth.

The kawakawa leaf makes its first peppery, minty appearance as a garnish to the entree, a grilled parmesan demitasse containing slices of smoked chicken breast on mesclun leaves.

It's not only the food at Mokoia that is contextualised so lucidly. The wines, too, possess intriguing back stories. I am drinking the Mugwi 2007 Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, named for the Maori elder and former All Black, Mugwi MacDonald. The reserve is produced by Tohu, NZ's only Maori-owned winery. It's a sublime choice, confirmed by Mokoia's wine guru, James Illingsworth. "This is our signature wine," he says. "You have the cut grass and gooseberries and tomato leaf coming through."

This culinary awakening draws to a sweet close. Dessert is another clever fusion of local elements and indigenous innuendo: there are mini pavlovas flecked liberally with minced kawakawa leaf and mascarpone-finished Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream, which casts subtle allusions to the strong ties linking the tribes of the Pacific. It is a Maori take on a global feast.

 

World's Most Expensive Champagne

Wild Taste of Russian Red Beer Dish