Make the most of autumn with new seasonal flavours and dishes. Photo / Supplied
Autumn brings a bounty of good things to eat, writes Anna King Shahab
One of the best things about slipping into a new season is the plethora of delicious things that appear on menus, and in markets. Here are some of our picks for deliciously autumnal fare around the country.
Keen on finding out what Southland growers, fishers, and farmers have to offer? Look no farther than Invercargill's The Batch Cafe and its "Made in Muruhiku" dish of the season. Right now it's beetroot-cured salmon with confit fingerling potatoes. If those last three words don't get you salivating, check your pulse.
At Cabot Lodge the awe-inspiring view over Fiordland National Park is spectacular, and the view down at your plate isn’t too shabby, either. One highlight on the autumn menu is lamb and pumpkin cappelletti with creamy spinach sauce and a side of roasted baby carrots, brussels sprouts and green beans (all grown on site) and goat’s cheese. Save room for dessert – Hennessy chocolate mousse, crumbed almond flour brownie, with a pistachio crumb, berry coulis, and honeycomb from the lodge’s hives.
In Queenstown, Amisfield’s full autumn menu just launched, and you can always count on chef Vaughan Mabee to bring a steady stream of dishes that surprise and delight, with a commitment to representing Central Otago that never wavers. Foraged and wild-sourced ingredients are a cornerstone, and right now, as Mabee says, that includes “Birch boletes, porcini, fairy ring champignons, acorns, and game birds.”
A 485-hectare piece of Central Otago’s Crown Terrace is home and workplace to shining star of the food world Nadia Lim, her husband Carlos Bagrie and their delightful boys. Last month the couple opened the Royalburn Farm Shop in Arrowtown, cementing their goal of bringing their farm spoils straight to the people. Shop shelves are laden, explains Lim, with “Our market garden produce, regeneratively raised lamb (which is slaughtered in our micro abattoir and butchered on the farm), and our honey.” Right now you’ll find nuts, pipfruit, carrots, bok choy, salad greens, and more. “Farmer Carlos will be harvesting the seeds of our seemingly five-million sunflowers now they’ve dried up, and they’ll be cold-pressed into oil which will be sold in refillable bottles.”
Parsnip fans, rejoice – the ones on the menu at Mt Cook Lakeside Retreat are fresh from the property’s garden, along with snap peas, radishes, brassicas, pumpkin, garlic, rhubarb, crab apples, various types of onion, and loads more. Proteins won’t have travelled too far, either – salmon from the Mackenzie canals, high country lamb, Fiordland venison, and salami made from the property’s deer herd.
Good luck finding anyone who'll spill the beans on just where exactly porcini are to be freed from the soil in Canterbury. In any case, you can enjoy them at Christchurch's Gatherings, made into a paté served with wood-roasted grapes and watercress salad. At nearby Inati, it'd be hard to go past the celeriac celebration that is a build-your own crumpet made with blackened celeriac stock, served with whipped celeriac, pickled celeriac tops and smoked celeriac. The dessert menu features a parsnip, white chocolate, apple, and pinot noir "mellow puff".
The Top of the South weighs in heavy in matters farm-to-table, thanks to prolific producers and operators who work closely with them – chef Brad Hornby from Marlborough's Arbour among them. When I contact Hornby he's just finished making a finger lime and feijoa sorbet, which will feature on the menu served with a caramelised yoghurt creme flavoured with fig leaves and ginger, quince paté du fruit, and "nashi pears that we compress in fresh gewurztraminer juice", he explains. "It's pretty much mouthfuls of Marlborough in autumn". In Blenheim, red cabbage stands in for meat and steals the show in this dish from Harvest chef Toby Stuart – grilled red cabbage "steak", whipped goat's cheese with garden herbs, roasted red onion and toasted barley and an orange and marjoram dressing. Stuart explains, "We use our Mibrasa charcoal oven to impart a smoky flavour to the cabbage; it also brings out the sweetness".
Grown at Sabai, Wellington restaurant Hillside's own small farm in Shannon, kuri squash has a nutty flavour reminiscent of chestnut. The kitchen has paired it with toasted sunflower seed butter, green coriander seed caviar, and coriander toasted pumpkin seeds. Newly opened wine bar Graze in Kelburn is serving up a feijoa highball that's looking mighty fine.
A perfectly cooked tart is a bistro staple, and at Napier's Central Fire Station the tart of the moment is bursting with beetroot, served warm with buffalo curd to offset the pink parade. Under the mighty Te Mata, the restaurant at Craggy Range is ringing the season in with an entree of stuffed quail and roasted leg, celeriac tart, grilled black grape and a port sauce. Head to Teresa for cocktail hour – its "foraged series" stars a gin and cordial, the sour plum cordial made with fruit gathered from Nelson Park. Forget the usual espresso martini, instead try Teresa's Sicilian caffe corretto – almond grappa, amaro, single origin coffee, and walnut orgeat, topped with a balsamic glaze and walnut wafer.
Every meal I have at Auckland's Ada has me thinking it must be one of the most seasonally driven offerings in the city. Right now late summer's aubergine and peppers are being phased out as chef Hayden Phiskie welcomes cooler weather produce like fennel, which he's serving as caponata, topped with burrata and toasted buckwheat.
Park Hyatt's pastry chef Callum Liddicoat is making the very most of figs. "One of my favourite fruits of autumn – if only the season lasted longer," he says. On the menu is his dessert of fresh fig compote doused in a fig-leaf creme, coated purple chocolate, joined by blackcurrant gel, salted roasted walnut ice cream and walnut sponge. At Ahi and The Grounds, Ben Bayly is rejoicing in produce harvested from their own garden in Patumāhoe – tomatoes and chillies aplenty still, kohlrabi, fennel, and cavolo nero.
In Paihia, Terra is putting Northland produce front and centre. This autumn, try a poultry terrine made with Marsden port nudges up to a quince millefeuilles. The kitchen team experimented with sun-drying limes over the summer – look out for the intensely flavoured result in upcoming dishes. Seafood is a star here, including Orongo Bay oysters which are succulent and sweet right now.
Farmer's and produce markets are an excellent place to visit to see what autumn brings to the table across the regions. Otago Farmer's Market, Marlborough Farmer's Market, Hawke's Bay Farmer's Market, Whangārei Grower's Market, Auckland's Avondale Sunday Market, and Wellington's Harbourside Market are some of the largest and most vibrant.
In perfect time for cooler weather, McClure's Pickles' Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover sees well over 100 eateries up and down the country vying to be crowned top in toasties. Melted cheese, piquant pickles, and whatever else the chef fancies will make you swoon, between crisp, golden slabs of toasted bread … an autumn road trip to take in as many entries as possible is my plan! View a handy map of entries over at toastietakeover.com.
This story was first published in April 24, 2022. For more travel inspiration, go to newzealand.com/nz.
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