NZ Taste Trifecta Pips Sydney at the Post – Sept 2010
Food & Wine First XV & WLG Pop Up Restaurant: key ingredients in Kiwi Recipe for Rugby World Cup 2011 Success.
Just one year out from hosting the Rugby World Cup 2011, and on the eve of Sydney’s ‘Crave’ International Food Festival (which boasts culinary performances all over town by some of the biggest names on the global food scene), our unassuming Kiwi cousins have somehow managed to steal a march on the foodie limelight.
Firstly, to mark 365 days from RWC11 kick off, at the beginning of September, the Kiwis flew in a giant rugby ball (which is really a 25m long/17m high state-of-the-art portable venue that can hold up to 220 guests) and set up camp in the heart of the city at Circular Quay. This was a tactic successfully employed by the Welsh visiting team during Rugby World Cup 2003. Inside the All Blacks Giant Rugby Ball, visitors are virtually transported to New Zealand through a 10-minute 360-degree experience using multimedia and featuring visual arts, music and theatre. Visits last approximately one hour and guests enjoy the finest NZ wines and beers as they mingle with colleagues and the occasional All Black. Outside, cultural displays entertain passers-by.
Secondly, Tourism NZ teamed up with 15 of Sydney’s best restaurants to create a month-long festival to showcase the very best of NZ food and wine: Arras (Walsh Bay), Ash St Cellar (CBD), Assiette (Surry Hills), Atelier (Glebe), Chophouse (CBD), Etch (CBD), Firefly (Neutral Bay), Fix St James (CBD), Flinders Inn (Paddington), Hugo’s (Manly), Ocean Room (Circular Quay), Otto (Woolloomooloo), Restaurant Balzac (Randwick), Summit (CBD) and Tabou (Surry Hills) are the featured venue partners. Some of these restaurants are headed up by native Kiwis, but half the team are simply talented Aussies keen to take a closer look at the best the Kiwis can put on a plate, so it’s a real Trans-Tasman team effort to create menu matches along the lines of Good Food Month ‘Let’s Do Lunch’ annual promotions during October.
Thirdly, inhabitants from the nation’s capital of cool(Wellington at the south tip of the North Island) have embraced and enhanced one of Australia’s local dining crazes, by creating their own version of a unique pop up restaurant on the site of the old Bayswater Brasserie in Kings Cross. Open exclusively from September 14 to September 26th, the restaurant menu features the freshest seasonal Kiwi produce, hand-prepared by Kiwi chefs and served by Kiwi personnel, all especially flown in for the occasion.
#WLGSydney (Wellington on a Plate in Sydney) has taken the local dining scene by storm, and was fully booked within hours of opening. Being fair dinkum, those Kiwis had already decided beforehand that a handful of seats would be set aside every night for a select few walk-in customers.
When I dined at WLG last Thursday night, I arrived early to check out the kiwiana decor and market display stalls (especially the chocolates and books). This was opening night for a team new to the venue and the place was already buzzing in anticipation. Everybody had arrived that day from New Zealand. Some staff members were staying in hotels, while others were sharing apartments a few minutes from the restaurant. The first person I met at the bar at 5.15pm happened to be a Sydney-based Wellingtonian. She was hovering over a glass of wine in the hope of securing a walk-in table for three that night, so she could sample her favourite fish from home, ‘gurnard’. As we road tested my recommended wine match together in anticipation (the deliciously different fume style Dog Point vineyard plot 49 Sauvignon Blanc), my companion confided that back home (across the ditch) she had to wait three months to get a table booking at 2009 New Zealand Restaurant of the Year Logan Brown (where a delicious meal cost my drinking buddy more than $250 per head).
With Logan Brown’s head Chef Shaun Clouston (formerly of Wildfire fame) in residence behind the burners at WLG Sydney for just four nights and the fish being flown in fresh from New Zealand every day, I just knew that at all costs I had to try the “crispy skin gurnard with celeriac puree, preserved lemon and green apple salad”. Sauvignon Blanc (which took up a whole page of the wine list) worked perfectly with this simple fresh flavor-packed dish. Behind the bar, I had spotted the Escarpment label. Last time I visited Larry Mckenna in Martinborough, his wine was already on allocation at $90 a bottle, so I just could not go past a $7 glass of Escarpment Pinot Noir 2008. This went really nicely with the mushroom in filo dish.
Miraculously, at WLG Sydney you can purchase a bottle of Escarpment Pinot Noir to go with your meal for only $30. After your meal you can also swing by Camperdown Cellars in Darlo to find more of these local wines to take home. By the way, did I mention that three courses prepared by a celebrity chef costs you only $29? YES, really. Not only is this a uniquely different dining experience for Sydneysiders, it’s also high quality, friendly and incredibly accessible. No wonder 1,500 seats booked out faster than you can say “fush n chups”.
Hats off to our talented Kiwi cousins – any way you look at it, this dining experiment represents the epitome of customer service experience and bodes well for “off the field” experiences during next year’s Rugby World Cup tournament. Personally, I’m looking forward to watching Wales beat South Africa in Wellington and then celebrating in one of Wellington’s many delicious dining hot spots. Naturally, in between rugby matches, I’ll be popping into the Martinborough and Marlborough wine regions. So who’s joining me?
Find out more about NZ’s capital of cool here www.wellingtonnz.com