More than a Michelin Star: New Zealand’s food scene, finally in the spotlight

New Zealand’s food story is worth travelling for. People often ask me what New Zealand food actually is, and I never have a tidy answer. France has a cuisine. So does Italy, so does Japan. Say the name and a whole tradition arrives with it, based on centuries of tradition and culture, and instantly recognisable. New Zealand hasn’t really had that, and for a long time I thought of it as a gap. When the Michelin Guide handed out its first New Zealand awards this year, that old question came back to me; what is typical Kiwi cuisine? The numbers were genuinely something; we have fourteen restaurants with a star, while Essence in Queenstown has two. There are more than a hundred names in the inaugural guide altogether, a proper recognition for an industry that has been building its case for decades. But it wasn’t the count that got me thinking. It was picturing the inspectors out on the road for months, working out what this country’s food was before they could put a number on it. Tala, in Auckland, became the first Samoan restaurant anywhere on earth to receive a Michelin star. Chef Henry Onesemo talked afterwards about putting Samoa on the world stage: “We have always believed that Sa...