Toast Wellington
February 2nd, 2008 Posted in Pets Guide Necia Wilden is seduced by the food culture of the Kiwi
capital and nearby Martinborough.
We’re first-time visitors to the youngest country in the world,
sitting in a cafe in the world’s southernmost capital city. A city
that happens - in case you didn’t know - to be the most remote
capital in the world. And which boasts more restaurants, cafes and
bars per capita than New York.
Wellington, New Zealand, sure trots out the claims to fame. But
what about the experience?
The boasts are not lost on us. We fell in love with the Windy
City. Admittedly, one reason may have been the weather. For at
least a few mild, sunny days in November, Wellington failed to live
up to - or rather down to - its reputation for inclemency.
The main purpose of our trip is to visit a famous wine festival
in Martinborough, about an hour’s precipitous drive north-east of
here but to come to the North Island without going to Wellington
would be a dreadful oversight - like visiting the Grand Canyon and
missing out on Vegas - especially if you’re mad about food and
wine.
A friendly, compact, harbourside city with loads of culture and
charm, Wellington gets its hooks into you early. Even the drive
from the airport is scenic, the road snaking past steep green hills
clustered with gravity-defying colonial villas, inviting
comparisons with San Francisco. In the centre, the streets are made
for walking around the attractive four quarters, or precincts, that
divide the city into bite-sized chunks, while a population of about
190,000 makes the place feel like a town, not a rat race.
It’s a population fuelled by coffee. I know it’s a controversial
thing to say but the passion, vitality and commitment of the coffee
scene here makes those in Melbourne and Sydney seem almost tame by
comparison. There are no fewer than 10 independent coffee roasters
operating in and around the city and the quality of the various
coffees I tried was exceptional - fresh, bright and expertly made.
At the fashionable Nikau Gallery Cafe in Civic Square I drank a cup
of fair-trade organic coffee made with organic milk (sourced from
“a bloke who used to make haloumi out of a shed and the business
grew,” according to the owner) in between bites of a freshly baked
and irresistible Samoan coconut cream bun.
Wellington’s food, wine and coffee culture took off in the ’80s.
Today, it has more than 350 cafes, restaurants and bars - as well
as an unknown but large number of quality food stores. One of those
restaurants is the harbourfront Martin Bosley’s, named New Zealand
restaurant of the year last year by the national food bible,
Cuisine magazine. Chef and owner Bosley, who is crossing the Tasman
next month as a guest of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, has
a longstanding reputation as a seafood master. Judging by our
twilight dinner at his stylish restaurant, he also has a talent for
combining unexpected flavours and ingredients: a lesser chef would
have botched the slow-cooked beef cheek with smoked eel and
celeriac puree. Desserts are splendid, too.
For food-loving visitors, a good way to get to know the city is
to take a guided walk with a company called Zest Food Tours. Our
guide, Catherine Cordwell, is knowledgeable and full of zeal for
her home town. She leads us to Meat on Tory, with its range of
beautifully displayed goodies from small-scale producers; the
boutique chocolatier Shoc Chocolates, where the staff can analyse
your personality on the basis of your favourite flavour (my choice,
of 100 per cent dark bitter, seemed too obvious to bother); Mojo
Coffee, run by a second-generation Greek family whose names for
their coffees (Dr Mojo’s Medicine, Injection) are as nifty as their
product is good; and the family-owned grocery store Moore Wilson
Fresh, a model of what supermarkets ought to be. Here we find
venison, wild wallaby, wild goat, wild hare, ugli fruit and native
ingredients such as horopito pepper, as well as the best, creamiest
fetta we’ve ever tasted, by a brand called Zany Zeus. All that and
then lunch of paua (abalone) raviolo followed by great lamb and
local wines at one of New Zealand’s best-known restaurants, Logan
Brown.
An observation for those who are mad on wine: Wellington doesn’t
do international as well as it could, at least not yet. The focus
on the country’s own unarguably fine wines is understandable but it
would be good to see more strength in Old World selections at the
city’s top restaurants and wine bars. They’re pitching for a
discerning international audience, after all.
One thing you can’t fault the city for is friendliness. Heaven
knows we try but we can’t find a sourpuss anywhere. Most telling
are the casual, anonymous dealings with staff in cafes and
boutiques, who seem united as one in a breezy willingness to go out
of their way to help.
The outbreak of mass geniality doesn’t end when we leave
Wellington for Martinborough, centre of the Wairarapa wine region
and a significant destination on the Classic New Zealand Wine
Trail. As with many places that have grown up around the grape,
Martinborough is a winning blend of folksy and sophisticated. Who
would have thought such a small town - population 1300 - could have
such a big reputation for wine and food? This reputation will only
grow after the launch, next year, of a Le Cordon Bleu school of
cuisine, the first in the world to open in a rural location.
And now we’ve been here, we understand why so many affluent
Americans visit: with its neat, quiet little village and leafy
square, the town looks as if it has been transplanted straight from
the Napa Valley. A short drive away, too, is the larger but equally
charming Greytown (nicknamed “Gaytown”) with its Victorian-era
architecture and bijou collection of cafes and boutiques.
We eat the best food of our journey at a modest little
family-run restaurant in Martinborough’s main street. Wendy
Campbell’s French Bistro is the sort of place you always hope to
find in country towns and so very seldom do. A natural cook,
Campbell turns out light, clean and modern versions of classic
dishes using flawless produce. Groper carpaccio brilliantly shows
off the quality of New Zealand seafood; superbly light scallop
quenelles match perfectly with their partnered wine, a 2004
Martinborough Vineyard Chardonnay; sauteed calf liver and pancetta
leave us longing for more. It is unsurprising to hear that a recent
high-profile American visitor pronounced the food better than at
any number of Michelin three-stars in Europe. The prices are a bit
lower, too.
The culmination of this small town’s gustatory obsessions is its
outrageously successful annual festival, Toast Martinborough, held
on the third Sunday in November at up to a dozen of the region’s
vineyards. As locals will tell you, the first Toast in 1992 drew
5000 people and the tickets took six months to sell; this year, the
crowd topped 11,000 and the tickets sold out in, er, 19
minutes.
Why so fast? It’s no mystery and no mere marketing triumph. It
starts from quite early on that Sunday morning, with the
unmistakeable fizz of anticipation in the air as the crowds start
descending, mostly on foot, some wearing funny hats, all heading
for the shuttle-bus stop at the square. This is what the hippies
used to call a “happening” and, as it happens, when we land at our
first stop, Martinborough Vineyard, the band is belting out Janis
Joplin.
The folksy atmosphere of Toast is helped by the region’s
historical development. In contrast to most Australian winery
regions, Martinborough’s vineyards were built close together, so
you can walk from one to another with ease (or hop on a free
circuit bus). The festival is as much about live music as food and
wine and it’s a good mix: as well as the energetic cover bands
there are local stars and a headline act. (Last year, Wellington’s
young soul diva Hollie Smith drew such a big crowd organisers were
forced to close the gates.) Toast food is terrific; each vineyard
partners with a well-known restaurant from Wellington or Wairarapa
and they compete for the best-dish prize. We didn’t get to try the
winner - kawakawa-rubbed ribeye of beef from Riverview Cafe at
Winslow vineyard - but our own “personal best” was the whitebait
fritters with asparagus and hollandaise from Ruth Pretty Catering
(New Zealand’s answer to Maggie Beer) at Ata Rangi.
There was one other reason for our outright enjoyment of Toast
Martinborough - apart from the food, the wine, the music, the
almost tropical lushness of the New Zealand countryside and the
crowd’s boisterous but unboorish good mood - and that was the
weather. The festival publicity had warned us to “bring a range of
clothes as the weather can change rapidly”. And here it was: 30
degrees and blazing sunshine. Instead of frostbite we got
sunburnt.
“Nicely burnt Toast,” quipped my husband.
Necia Wilden travelled courtesy of Tourism New
Zealand.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Qantas and Air NZ fly daily non-stop to Wellington. One way from
Melbourne with Qantas and Air NZ is $224, and $213 from Sydney.
Virgin Blue flies regularly via Brisbane for $210 from Melbourne
and Sydney. (Fares are non-seasonal and do not include taxes.)
Hiring a car in Wellington is a popular way to get to
Martinborough, as is catching the train. See the link to Wairarapa
Gourmet Wine Escape at http://www.tranzmetro.co.nz.
Staying there
Holiday Inn, 75 Featherston Street, Wellington, has double rooms
from $NZ175-$225 ($154-$198). Phone (64) 4 499 8686 or see http://www.holidayinn.co.nz.
Parehua Country Estate, New York Street, Martinborough, phone
(64) 6 306 8405 or see http://www.parehua.co.nz.
Eating there
Martin Bosley’s Yacht Club Restaurant, 103 Oriental Parade,
phone (64) 4 920 8302 or see http://www.martin-bosley.com.
Logan Brown, cnr Cuba and Vivian streets, phone (64) 4 801 5114
or see http://www.loganbrown.co.nz.
Zest Food Tours walking gourmet tour, $NZ210 including lunch.
See www.zestfoodtours.co.nz.
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