In his fortnightly foodie advice column, Viva’s resident dining-out editor shares his recommendations and insider advice. This week, Jesse has opinions – he ranks NZ’s best foodie cities and Auckland’s best crudo.
Where is New Zealand’s best foodie city?
I saw in a story recently that Wellington
is trying to reclaim the title of culinary capital. Where are things at from your perspective? Is Auckland still New Zealand’s best foodie city? What would be your top five?
Yes, Auckland is well ahead, because of the international (particularly migrant) influence, concentration of talent and the sheer population making new and interesting restaurants viable. Regarding the others, I’ll do you even better than a top five and give you my top 10:
Note: cities in wine regions benefit somewhat from the numerous cellar doors and restaurants within 20 minutes of the city.
How do I expect this list to move in the future? I’d like to see Tauranga/Mount Maunganui and Rotorua make a challenge but they are both feeling a little stuck where they are. I think Hamilton is light years ahead of Dunedin, but it’ll be hard to overtake Hawke’s Bay as long as big names such as Craggy Range and Blackbarn are in the picture. Christchurch just continues to get better, meaning Wellington will need to work hard to keep that spot competitive. As someone who spent all of my 20s in that beautiful capital city, I believe in them!
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Crudo features on many Auckland restaurant menus – including Olle, Ohui, Takapuna Beach Cafe and Aarth. But who makes Auckland’s best? Photos / Babiche Martens, supplied
Who makes Auckland’s best crudo?
I’ve heard you talk about the dish crudo and how it seems to be on almost every menu in Auckland. Here’s a challenge for you then. Who does it best?
Anonymous chef, thank you for this excellent challenge.
Traditional crudo is done in one particular way but we’ve got used to thinking of it as pretty much any raw fish dish. Kingfish is regarded as the top species to do it with, but I’d be surprised if many people could tell it from trevally or even kahawai in a blind tasting. You get plenty of snapper crudo too, though I personally tend not to get excited about raw tarakihi unless it’s in a high-end Japanese restaurant.
The fish usually comes with some sort of acid – almost always citrus, in practice – though the amount of contact between flesh and liquid varies. Sometimes it’s just quickly plated up while other chefs like to “cook” it in the marinade until it starts to turn opaque.
And yes, you’ll find it almost everywhere, presumably because we keep ordering it. You’d be a brave bistro owner not to offer it in some form, so the question becomes not “will I sell it?” but “how should I serve it?”.
I immediately think of Olle in Milford where, I reported, “you’re encouraged to take chopsticks and toss your plate of raw snapper, mixing it in with gochugang, shredded pear and nori, and dashi granita”. Staying on the shore, I loved what they did at Bon Pinard: “tuna fillet [with] capsicum, fermented for acidity then chopped with the tuna for a vivid red, vaguely smoky carpaccio, spread over buffalo curd [on sourdough]”. And finally, let me single out Ponsonby Rd’s Jacuzzi where, when it comes to crudo, they have “created a whole raw menu around it …. We went with a really lovely Mexican-themed tuna tostada … big cubes of crimson fish with a decently spicy jalapeno creme fraiche and a bright green salsa”.
But some breaking news – this week I ate one of the best crudos I’ve ever come across. You’ll have to wait until my regular review on Wednesday to find out where.
Open all hours?
A suggestion for Jesse’s excellent restaurant reviews: it would be helpful to know if the restaurant under review does lunch as well as dinner. Opening hours or kitchen hours could be added, but a basic “Opening: dinner only, Wed-Sun” or “Opening: lunch, Fri-Sun; dinner, Mon-Sun” would allow us to better plan our tasty outings.
Hi Caroline, it’s a great suggestion. To be honest, I haven’t tinkered much with the boxed text – that standardised info on the review – since I took over the job from the great Nici Wickes in 2015. At some point, we changed from scoring restaurants out of 10 to scoring them out of 20, to be consistent with other reviews in the Herald stable at the time. I also added the “reservations accepted” etc when restaurants went through a phase of taking walk-ins only.
Post-Covid, with demand falling away, I’ve found most places are happy just to have a paying customer so it’s exceptionally rare to find a maitre d who won’t accept your booking. So that part of the review might be in danger as well as the phone number, because when was the last time you phoned a restaurant? A lot of new places just operate via a cellphone in the owner’s back pocket. It feels a bit risky to put that number at the top of my review – call a millennial who isn’t expecting it and you’ll give them an early heart attack. Anyway, we’ll keep both as is for now because old habits die hard.
But to your suggestion, which we all think is excellent. I will start doing it from this week, and I look forward to including information such as 5pm-late, knowing that in Auckland “late” means the kitchen is still open at 8.15pm. Thank you Caroline, I hope you feel proud every time you see it in print.
What you’ve asked, and what he’s shared.