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Wellington restaurants keeping it local

From foraging for sea lettuce to growing herbs on rooftops, Wellington restaurants are going straight to the source, writes Simon Farrell-Green.

Simon Farrell-Green

The rooftop garden at Matterhorn.
The rooftop garden at Matterhorn.Supplied

Not long ago, chef Jacob Brown, owner of The Larder restaurant in Wellington's suburban Miramar, found a new pig farmer to supply his restaurant – Long Bush Free Range Pork in the Wairarapa. They're New Zealand large blacks, properly free range, allowed to roam, with grass to graze on and mud to bask in. “Big black heritage pigs,” says Brown enthusiastically. “You order your pig and they send it off and you get it the next day. And then we use the whole pig.”

Getting in whole animals is key to his cooking style, but it's also a cost-saving measure that allows him to buy from producers such as Long Bush. He uses the prime cuts for main dishes and sausages, and then makes pancetta, bacon, ham. You name it and he's done it, transforming the kitchen into a sort of butchery. For a long time, he was famous for making a rolled pig's head, a dish of such delicate unctuousness as to be sublime. For last year's Wellington on a Plate festival, he developed an entire menu around feet.

It takes an enormous amount of effort, but Brown is committed to supporting small producers – going so far as to feature them in photographs on the walls of the restaurant. He gets microgreens from up the coast, naturally fermented ginger beer from Hardieboys Beverages – as much as he can from small producers.

Using every part of the animal ... The Brain Burger from The Larder.
Using every part of the animal ... The Brain Burger from The Larder.Supplied
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In a lot of ways, it's infinitely more complicated than just dialling up something from the one supplier, and he does have days when he wonders what the hell he's doing – but Brown insists he gets better produce and meat this way. “They have to look you in the eye,” he says. “They have a personal commitment to you because you have that relationship – these people constantly try to give you the best product. Whereas, through a supplier, who am I going to complain to?”

Better service, too. On Valentine's Day this year, the courier failed to deliver his order of microgreens from Pranag Greens, so owner Mayatiita Southerwood got in his car and delivered them himself.

While going direct does save money – there's no middle man – generally the kind of suppliers Brown uses cost more than ordering anonymous stuff from a distributor. Which is one reason he brings in whole carcasses. “I can't afford to buy the individual prime cuts, but I can afford the whole thing,” he says. This inevitably changes the way he cooks – instead of just dreaming up a menu, he works with what he has to hand in the chiller. “It makes you do a lot more preserving, curing, that sort of thing.”

Chicken feet in use at The Larder.
Chicken feet in use at The Larder.Supplied

Across town at Matterhorn, head chef Jimmy Pask ascends the stairs to the restaurant's rooftop garden twice a day to water the vegetables: at the moment, he's growing heirloom tomatoes, rare herbs, old-fashioned radishes and borage for the flowers, as well as four or five rare breeds of basil. “What we grow is anything you can't get a lot of,” he sayd. In New Zealand, and particularly Wellington, the market is often too small for it to be economically viable to grow unusual produce – so British-born Pask grows his own.

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That, or he sends his chefs packing to forage for it. Once a week, they leave the kitchen to scour the pristine coast around Wellington, looking for samphire (sea asparagus) and sea lettuce. The harvest comes with a fresh, intense flavour. In other countries, the goods are easily ordered through suppliers, but not here. “And it never will be, which I don't mind at all,” he says. “In the UK it's farmed, but it's more floral. Here it tastes like the sea.”

Sadly, the garden really only provides the restaurant with garnishes as there just isn't enough room to grow everything it might go through in a season. “I'd need an acre for that,” says Pask. Is that an option? “I don't think it is at the moment, but if I could, I would.”

An acre is almost the size of the garden at Wharekauhau Lodge – a beautiful Edwardian pile an hour and a half from central Wellington, on the coast out from Wairarapa. It's a beautiful property – 5000 rolling acres established as a sheep stud in the 1840s, still a working farm that supplies the lodge with Texel lamb as well as Angus, Speckle Park and Simmental beef. “It's kind of that old New Zealand farming thing,” says lodge manager Richard Rooney, “when everything came off the property.”

Which is true, and also not true: despite the rural provenance, the standard of cooking at Wharekauhau is second to none, which is all the more remarkable given that most of what you eat comes from two large vegetable gardens – one for herbs, another for vegetables. The gardens are more than large enough to supply the lodge's kitchen. Menus change weekly, depending on what's in season and what is best at the time. “So if the potatoes have got a bit past it, we won't use it.” Instead, they'll use something perfectly in season, or source it from local growers – those potatoes might make it into a staff dinner.

The kitchen staff also forage for wild fennel – that's on the menu a lot at the moment – and gather watercress from streams. Fish comes from local fishermen, wine from nearby vineyards, and cheese from local cheesemakers. In fact, the lodge now runs a farmers' market with Te Kairanga vineyard, such is its connection with local artisan food producers.

And for many of their international visitors, seeing where their food comes from is something of a novelty. “We market ourselves into the US particularly,” says Rooney. “It's nice for them to see where it comes from.”

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