When I speak to Vaughan Mabee, head chef at Queenstown’s Amisfield Restaurant, he’s just stepped out of a lunch in the hills of Calabria with renowned chefs Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz and Albert Adrià, formerly of El Bulli. Mabee is in good company - Amisfield recently became the first
Widely considered one of the world’s leading culinary awards, aside from Michelin, World’s 50 Best Restaurants has been shining its spotlight since 2002. Where Michelin has strict criteria, World’s 50 Best Restaurants profiles places that don’t strictly adhere to the limits of fine dining, and seeks out incredible eating, everywhere from San Sebastian to Sao Paulo. And yet, it has taken until now for a Kiwi restaurant to finally make the much-lauded list. But why has it taken so long?
“I think we underestimate how difficult it is for a country as small and remote as New Zealand to get on to the list,” says Alexandra Carlton, World’s 50 Best academy chair for Oceania. “Voters need to visit, for starters. But also the restaurant or restaurants that they eat at need to be so creative and exceptional that they earn a spot on that voter’s list.”
There are 1120 voters around the world, including chefs, restaurateurs, journalists and industry experts who eat and travel widely. The voters are spread across 28 regions, and a quarter of the panel is changed each year to keep the list fresh. To vote for a restaurant, you have to have visited it in the past 18 months.
Carlton’s Oceania remit spans Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, making it a challenge for any Kiwi restaurant to attract votes. Voters must be drawn not just from across Australia and the Pacific, but from regions often 24 hours’ travel away. It’s clear why it has taken this long for New Zealand to make the list.
“It’s difficult to overstate the accomplishment,” says NZ Herald dining out editor Jesse Mulligan of Mabee’s award. “It’s hard enough for a restaurant in central London to attract the attention of the judges, let alone one in New Zealand; let alone one at the very far end of New Zealand! It’s a reward earned by equal parts talent, resolve and patience.”
“We’re at the bottom of the world,” Mabee says, between courses of truffle-laden spaghetti. “50 Best has never seen a restaurant in its history from New Zealand. This is amazing for the country. I’m sitting at a table right now with some of the best chefs in the world, and all we’re doing is talking about how they’re coming to New Zealand this year. They’ve never been, and they’re super-excited about it.”
He adds that “the list opens up different doors from New Zealand and brings different clients to New Zealand that we’re after in the fine dining scene”. But it’s not just high-end restaurants that will benefit, he says. It’s about “getting people down to Bluff to try our oysters, or giving them a whitebait fritter or blue cod – essentially all of the things we take for granted in New Zealand that are only in New Zealand”.
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Marisa Bidois, chief executive of the Restaurant Association, says Amisfield’s achievement is a landmark moment. “Amisfield’s inclusion proves what we’ve known for years, that New Zealand belongs on the global culinary stage. This isn’t just a win for one restaurant, it’s a win for the entire food community here, from chefs to producers. We’re thrilled to see the world finally recognising our unique food identity and talent.”
She adds that almost 60% of international visitors to New Zealand say food and drink is a key motivator for travel, and that culinary tourists spend more and stay longer.
Like any awards system, the World’s 50 Best set-up isn’t perfect, the primary criticism being that it ends up as something of a pay-to-play scenario, where restaurants that can afford to fly in potential voters and wine and dine them are more likely to make the list. It’s not entirely incorrect, but it oversimplifies a key facet of the food and drink industry.
To get people to write about them or generate conversation, restaurants usually have to pay for it. This isn’t necessarily a play at making the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list – voters are strictly required to be anonymous – but the odds are that, if you’re bringing in key journalists, or influential fellow chefs, at worst they’re going to spread the word and, at best, they might cast their vote for you.
For New Zealand restaurants, this is even harder. In the northern hemisphere, the price of bringing in a voter might be the easyJet flight from London to another European centre.
In our part of the world, it costs thousands. For this reason, Mabee says, “we didn’t have a huge amount of people in who I think were voters”, but he believes those who came were so excited by what he’s doing that they ranked Amisfield top of their list.
New Zealand is hardly short of talented chefs or incredible restaurants. The calibre of food is generally high and, at the top tier, chefs are doing truly special and surprising things – something Carlton says is a key element to earning votes.
“The most important thing a restaurant can do to attract a voter’s attention in the first place, and then stay in their mind long after the visit, is to be surprising,” she says. “Do something that no other restaurant is doing anywhere in the world.”
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Advertise with NZME.Surprise is key at Amisfield, which almost exclusively serves wild game – except for the odd lamb from Nadia Lim’s nearby farm – in subversive ways. Think duck shaped into a foot with truffle “claws”, or deer antlers dripping with a “blood”, which is really foraged berry sauce. Mabee’s food is designed to be visually controversial, but at no point does it sacrifice flavour in pursuit of drama.
“If you have a restaurant on the list, it goes a long way towards luring global gourmands to your region, who then spend money across all kinds of businesses,” says Carlton. “New Zealand is so far away and so mysterious to most of the globe. People need a solid anchor reason to visit, and a spot on the 50 Best list is an excellent lure.”
Our neighbours across the pond have done a little better, with restaurants such as Brae, Quay, Attica and Gimlet all nabbing spots on either the top 50 or 50-100 lists over the years, helped by the event being hosted in Melbourne in 2017.
Amisfield’s award could be a similar catalyst for New Zealand. “Global recognition like this turns heads and drives travel,” says Bidois. “Culinary tourism is booming, and lists like World’s 50 Best influence where people go. We expect more food lovers will now look to New Zealand as a must-visit destination, not just for our landscapes but for our food too.”
So where else could these visitors be going? Mabee says he’ll be sending all his diners to The Chef’s Table at Blue Duck Station, where, on a hill in the middle of the farm, accessible only by all-terrain vehicle, helicopter, horseback or mountain bike, chef Jack Cashmore cooks up a 10-course menu using ingredients found in and around the station in the Ruapehu District. Carlton also name-checks Auckland’s Tala, where Henry Onesemo and head chef Tommy Hope give Samoan cuisine the fine dining treatment. Bidois, meanwhile, thinks Paris Butter, Ahi, and Taupō’s Embra are all restaurants ripe for international acclaim.
“I think it’ll have a noticeable impact on food tourism to New Zealand,” Mulligan says. “I went to Yountville [California] to eat at The French Laundry, but of course I ate at half a dozen other places while I was there. Amisfield is a stone’s throw from wine country and, for overseas visitors, the local gateway is Christchurch: a city whose international tourist nights have risen sharply in recent years, and which has the restaurant scene to support high-end visitors on the way in and out.”
He thinks restaurants in the “second tier, cost-wise: excellent, owner-operated restaurants that take the best of New Zealand’s food influences and create something unique to this country” will benefit the most from this added boost to culinary tourism. He mentions iconic chefs such as Ben Bayly, Sid Sahrawat, Michael Meredith and Al Brown as figureheads in that bracket, whose restaurants are bound to see people making the journey.
There are many benefits to being at the bottom of the world, but what makes New Zealand a great place to live – its isolation, its independence – can, at times, be the biggest thorn in its side. For the country to finally be getting this culinary attention opens up an entirely new genre of tourist who will bring a much-needed injection of support for our struggling hospitality industry.
“For New Zealand, food is a high-value tourism driver, and recognition like this helps supercharge that,” says Bidois. “Our chefs have been quietly doing extraordinary things without chasing the spotlight. That’s starting to change, and the world is finally taking notice.”
