From beachside dining at Snack Le Kougny to the off-the-beaten-track Table du Banian - explore the diverse flavors of this island paradise on a plate. Photo / Supplied
The food in New Caledonia isn’t solely French-inspired, it’ll leave a lasting impression for decades to come, writes Michael Lamb
Zachary has no idea he’s growing up in paradise. The impish son of the cook at Snack Le Kougny is darting around outside the kitchen, without a care in the world. His wild hair stands up vertically, his winning smile runs across his face. I ask in my schoolyard French if he’ll allow me to take a photo, and he excitedly agrees.
Inside his mum is cooking up the food of dreams — well, my dream anyway: scallops, prawns, crayfish, tuna and of course, escargot. The snails are sourced locally, here on the Isle of Pines — or Île des Pins — a 20-minute flight from the New Caledonian capital, Noumea. Technically we’re on an even smaller island nestled into that one, called the Île Kô Ngéaa Ké, where the sand is coral creamy white, the water azure, the sun warm and the setting almost too perfect.
The tables are scattered over the sand, shaded by palms. Elodie and her sister, who own the joint, are warm and efficient hosts, busily ferrying generous plates of food out to the beach and maintaining a general air of bonhomie. We dine on beautiful grilled crayfish, moist with garlic butter. There are skewers of white fish washed down with juice sipped from fresh coconuts. Snack Le Kougny is not cheap, but worth every Pacific franc. I wonder if any other dining experience can come close to this, not just in New Caledonia, but on the planet.
In my life of dining at curious locations there have, of course, been lows and highs. From the painful depths of a hot pot dinner in Taipei that laid me low for days, to the ecstasy of tapas to die for at Cal Pep in Barcelona, where I encountered a plate of tuna tartare made by the food gods that still lingers in my sense memory.
And now, New Caledonia has laid claim to two of the top spots in my culinary hitlist, Snack Le Kougny and a food moment from my previous visit to New Cal, on a school trip way, way back in the day.
READ MORE: Why I’ll always pick New Caledonia over any other island holiday
Then, we were taken out to Amedée Island, about a 30-minute boat ride from Noumea. There on the beach, the locals grilled freshly caught fish over a fire. So casual, easy and mind-blowingly delicious. I’d never seen such a thing and the idyllic image of that fish blackening over the flames has stayed with me.
It was a recollection that made me salivate at the thought of returning to New Caledonia after all these years. They say “to eat in New Caledonia is to eat French food with authenticity, passion and style … ” and that will prove to be true.
It started simple. As we road-tripped up the island, we often pulled together classic French-style picnic lunches, with saucisson (cured salami-ish sausage), the best, plumpest tomatoes, fresh baguettes and glorious cheeses. Find a bit of beach, kick back in their “winter” days of 25C and it’s happy South Pacific days.
In the hills of La Foa, an area about 40km north of Noumea, we searched out a different kind of restaurant. Along a track so deeply rutted you’d doubt it was a driveway if not for the reassuring signs, we found the remarkable Table du Banian.
There’s no menu here, because this is a ‘table d’hote’: each day the welcoming Annick Sadimoen cooks up a set menu feast, with ingredients from her gardens and organics sourced at the markets.
There are just a handful of tables, so all diners get a view north through the green hills of La Foa. Today, Annick presents a beautiful Tarte aux trois Fromages - three cheese tart - with local goat’s cheese leading the way. Then there’s Poulet au Jaquier, a kind of chicken, jackfruit and coconut casserole inspired by Annick’s Indonesian husband, with a gorgeous fresh garden salad, before the final flourish, a passionfruit tart with made from home-grown fruit and drizzled with honey from their own bees. Annick has cracked the code: her food philosophy is mix, share, relax and enjoy.
We are hoping this experience will be matched by a visit to the Ny tribe, near Bourail, a few clicks further north from La Foa (these tribal visits can be readily arranged for visitors to the island through the tourist office). There the plan is to spend some time with the Kanuk people, who will make “bougna” for lunch, a traditional Melanesian fish dish of taros or sweet potatoes (or sometimes poingo bananas or yams) and coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked under hot stones. But news filters through that the Ny tribe’s chief has sadly died and the tribe is in mourning.
Back in Noumea, we decide to head out early one morning to the Poissonnerie du Marché, the fish market, down on the waterfront. It delivers the goods in spades: a riotous selection of perroquets (parrot fish), bossu (humpback fish), coconut crabs, fat prawns, red mullet and piles more. Then we head to the market’s popular Buvette du Marché (market snack bar) for coffee, panini and croque monsieurs (the French take on ham and cheese toasties).
Which formulates a point: the perception is that New Caledonia is expensive to visit, and expensive for dining. There can be some truth to that, and it makes sense when you have French-style cuisine, with all the ingredients are required, being created on a remote island.
But frankly, the restaurant prices are no higher than the big cities in New Zealand. And you have the option to mix and match: there are corner cafes and small restaurants where you can eat at reasonable prices. Or copy the locals and snack on the ubiquitous hot, crunchy “nems”, rolled sticks of savoury, meaty deliciousness that are sold everywhere, from convenience stores to airports to gas stations. (This street food is the culinary influence of Vietnamese workers who first came to the island back in the 1890s.)
So if you decide to Air BnB and self-cater, it’s all there: fresh produce and fish from the market, supermarket wine and of course outstanding deli cheeses; plus the boulangeries (bakeries) - like the outstanding L’Atelier Gormand in Anse Vata where we were staying - and boucheries (butchers), which are routinely brilliant.
And when you feel like splashing out, the top spots are waiting, like La Marmite Et Tire Bouchon (rough translation: The Pot and the Corkscrew) or the over-the-water driftiness of Le Roof.
We wander down to Le Roof from our hotel one warm July evening. Perched with postcard prettiness out over the water, the restaurant features a giant glass fish-viewing floor in the middle of the room, through which hopefully to spot a passing dolphin or baby shark. The seagulls love to swoop under there as well, and at night the lights pierce the turquoise blue water, picking out the sprats and baitfish.
We dine on a seafood feast — lagoon fish carpaccio served with argan oil, espelette peper and coriander, and today’s special, “bossu” For dessert, we have the very good Le Roof take on tiramisu.
La Marmite Et Tire Bouchon is the No#1 rated restaurant in Noumea (on our old mate Tripadvisor), so we save the best for last. With flagstone floors, rough-hewn posts and a whitewashed ceiling, at first glance it looks like some kind of old plantation room quickly converted to a restaurant. Except for the flash, glass-walled feature cellar at one end, where hundreds of bottles of expensive wine line the walls, daring diners to prise open their wallets.
The food is brilliant, that hybrid of fine French cuisine and Pacific vibes that’s so easy to love. For starters, I take the mangrove crab with green apple, mayonnaise sauce, curry guacamole and chilli green papaya salad. Then follow that with a main of beautiful Caledonian crevettes (prawns) served with mango ginger chutney, celery-arabica purée, braised celery and white coffee emulsion. (Yip, this is definitely French semi-haute cuisine!) My girlfriend heads straight to a main dish, with the special of coral trout filet confit, served with olive oil and tomato pesto, parmesan, polenta, smoked pork belly. A couple of glasses of chilled pinot gris and a shared serving of the cheesecake with berry coulis later, and we stagger home groaning with satisfaction.
So, why go all the way to France for great French cuisine when you can fly to New Caledonia in three hours and have some culinary adventures that may just make it into some of your most memorable? A place where the sun is kind, the lagoons are dreamy and there’s food to write home about. Paris with a beach, anyone?
For more things to do in New Caledonia, visit nz.newcaledonia.travel
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