Chef Amber Doig on Creating a New Zealand Moment on a Sydney Rooftop & More News Here

There is a lot to discover in New Zealand, it may be laborious to know the place to start. Cue the latest occasion hosted by Broadsheet, the place New Zealand’s distinctive tradition was showcased throughout meals, wine, musical and creative choices.

The three-hour occasion at Paramount House Hotel’s Golden Age Cinema & Bar and Paramount Recreation Club, themed Aotearoa Awaits, featured New Zealand wines curated by Max Walker from Paranormal Wines and a particular three-course snack menu from New Zealand-born Amber Doig, head chef of The Butler.

Despite now dwelling in Australia, Doig stays a champion of New Zealand produce. She incorporates many native New Zealand components into her menus at The Butler, weaving them into the restaurant’s Latin American focus.

“I went back to what I think New Zealand encapsulates when it comes to food,” says Doig of the menu she plated for Aotearoa Awaits. “We have our oceans and our forests, and rainforests and rugged farmland as well. I wanted to take an element from each for each course.”

Doig’s one-off snacks menu opened with a snapper and clam ceviche with coconut cream and avocado oil, with Proper Crisps-brand tortilla chips on the facet. “New Zealand snapper is abundant around the country,” Doig says. “You can pretty much drop a line in anywhere and catch it. And Cloudy Bay clams are a well-known industry around Marlborough, with the crystal-clear waters there. Raw fish with coconut cream is a big thing with Māori and Pacific Islanders, as well as with our neighbours in the outer Islands, so I really wanted to include that dish.”

As a Māori lady born and raised in Christchurch, Doig needed to spotlight native components and evoke the tradition of looking and gathering within the forests. So, her second course featured seared and smoked venison loin rubbed with a mixture of native forest spices, together with horopito and kawakawa, and served with a feijoa salsa that harks again to her grandmother’s feijoa chutney.

“Just working on the land is so much a part of the New Zealand lifestyle, whether it be fishing or hunting,” she says. “Venison is really abundant where I’m from in Canterbury, and feijoa is an iconic New Zealand ingredient -the sweetness goes really well with the gaminess of the venison.”

For dessert, Doig created bite-sized panna cotta, that heroed Mānuka honey, Heilala Vanilla and golden kiwifruit.

Creating the menu introduced her proper again to New Zealand’s abundance of world-class produce, the place Regal and Ōra King salmon flourish within the Marlborough Sounds, not removed from its world-famous wine nation.

“There’s a lot of continuity between the wine country and the connected food industries,” says Doig. “You pass cheese factories, wineries, olive groves and ladies selling chutneys on the side of the road. An hour’s drive can take you two hours if you wanted to stop and try the fruits of the land.”

Doig is thrilled at any time when she has the chance to journey again and go to her household in New Zealand, and goals to proceed highlighting the nation’s distinctive produce in her work as a chef. “Whether it’s using certain seasonings or having New Zealand scampi on special, I always try to support our industries as much as possible over here,” she says. “It’s not just bias: it’s delicious as well. Everyone deserves to have it, not just us in New Zealand.”

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Tourism New Zealand.