As well as having a wonderfully appropriate name to kick off our story, New New New brewery is one of the most creative craft brewers in the South Island. Its adventurous brews have now become even easier to lay your hands on with the opening of a taproom in Crawford Street where locals and visitors alike can grab takeaway, tap-filled riggers of the good stuff, all within the soothing surrounds of a renovated heritage building.
It seems that much that is new and interesting in Dunedin is housed within elegantly restored Victorian and Edwardian buildings – a combination of heritage and contemporary thinking which is coming to define the city.
The view down Stuart Street towards Dunedin Railway Station, site of the Saturday Otago Farmers’ Market.
A bank vault is guarding the booze at Vault 21, the ‘enfant terrible’ of the Octagon, which has been serving a Chinese-fusion sharing-plate menu since 2015. It’s a former BNZ bank but did an 18-year tour of duty as the Ra Bar before restauranteur Andre Shi bought it. He gutted and extensively renovated the building, using old structural beams as tables, heat-scarred pressed-tin panels (apparently damaged in the infamous Cafe Chantant fire in 1879 which killed 12 people) as wall decoration and the aforementioned vault as a cellar. Andre recognised the area needed something beyond the “meat and three veg” which was de rigueur in the neighbourhood and enlisted chef Greg Piner to bring some much-needed diversity to the Octagon dining scene.
Since his arrival in early 2016, he’s won a Silver Fern Farms master of fine cuisine award for his cured venison short loin with trio of mushroom (pickled shiitake, cep purée, tempura needle mushrooms), compressed radish, ponzu, black truffle salt, pea tendrils and crispy shallots. Locusts helped put Vault 21 on the culinary map and Greg was one of the first to experiment with the insect in Dunedin. Critters sourced from Malcolm Diack of Otago Locusts become ‘sky prawns’ – organic, fried and chilli-salted mouthfuls of insect protein.
Vault 21.
They’ve got more surprises at Vault 21, too. Their sous-vide Wakanui blue beef is garnished with house-made gochujang and coriander butter then flamed at the table with a blow torch. The classic steam bun gets a fusion dessert treatment with a chocolate mousse filling and a topping of roasted white chocolate crumble.
Andre and Greg have also collaborated to introduce some smoky Americana into the Dunedin dining scene with their newest eatery, Prohibition Smoke House on St Andrew Street. After yet more research, the talented Mr Piner has created a menu replete with southern American classics such as short rib, creole-spiced half roast chicken, buttermilk chicken wings, jalapeño poppers and pecan pie.
Greg was a member of the winning team in the ‘Battle of The Pacific’ culinary competition in Melbourne last year along with Fifi Leong, also of Vault 21, and celebrated Bracken head chef and owner Ken O’Connell. Ken’s restaurant on Filleul Street (in a restored Victorian villa) is an institution and offers the best fine dining in Dunedin.
Seed bread at Standard Kitchen.
Standard Kitchen resides in the old financial district in a building that recently won the Dunedin Heritage Re-use Award. It’s a stylish home for James Roberts’ menu of seasonal, raw, vegan, gluten-free food. Here you’ll find organic green vegetables and herbs from Potato Point Produce which are grown in soil, not hydroponically, which is quite a challenge so far south. Eggs come from Agreeable Nature in Balclutha, where the hens are raised on pasture, which helps produce a deeper yolk colour. A flavoursome dish of spiced chickpeas and baba ganoush on oat and walnut toast with beetroot, seeds and a spiced yoghurt looks simple but belies the fact that all the ingredients are created in-house, starting with James’ popular flour-free seed bread.
James is greening his menu over the colder months after what he calls a summer “corn obsession”. “Now I’m into brassicas with the likes of raw, finely chopped broccoli and cauliflower with kale sprouts and crunchy tofu for contrast and texture.” James keeps his drinks menu as local as his produce with artisan tea company Bowerbird Teas supplying the cuppa, and coffee coming from Fat Cat Coffee (by Outram roaster Wendy Jepson) and Common Ground (Nick Scott’s small batch coffee roastery and cafe down the road in Strathallan Street). Incidentally, Common Ground lend a blend of Costa Rican, Colombian and Guatemalan coffee beans for Emerson’s Brewery’s Common Addiction brown ale.
Toast at Standard Kitchen.
Just off Princes Street on Carroll Street there’s Wolf at the Door. There you’ll discover owner Troy Butler has a knack for opening edgy and compelling cafes – with another, Morning Magpie, on Stuart Street – and a talent for repurposing Radiohead song titles into cafe names. They serve a compact menu with vegan and gluten-free options: skillet breakfasts, huevos rancheros or housemade bagels lead on to pulled-pork brioche or burgers, with a peppering of treats such as berry chocolate pinwheels, gluten-free white chocolate and berry brownies, and vege muffins. Free classic arcade games will keep the kids amused while you enjoy all the aforementioned goodies.
The retro, vintage vibe at Wolf at the Door finds its antithesis a few metres down Princes Street at Vanguard. The crisp, industrial-chic cafe interior is where owner Jason Moore roasts and packages his coffee for aficionados to take home. Of course, you can enjoy it in-house alongside their popular market sandwich or Middle Eastern shakshuka (oven-baked eggs, spiced tomato sauce, feta and coriander on toasted sourdough). Jason is at pains to educate his staff with regular cuppings and hosts the odd latte-art throwdown for local baristas, to keep things fun.
Hot chocolate at Ocho.
Replacing a tattoo and body-piercing store late last year, Jayren Dixon’s Daily Coffee Co will fulfil your hipster longings without the inky regret. Coffee from Auckland boutique roaster Miller’s and the odd guest bean is served in a dining room lined with artworks and quirky mirrors. His frozen flat whites quickly found a fan base in the thriving cafe scene around the financial district and nearby warehouse precinct.
A few blocks over you hit the warehouse district and Vogel Street boutique chocolatier Liz Rowe’s Ocho Cafe. Ocho cacao is sourced from Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands and finds its way into the best hot chocolate in town. You can also get a spicy Mexican-style or mix-and-match mocha made with their Allpress coffee and chocolate, which Liz roasts, winnows, grinds and tempers from unprocessed cacao beans out back in her factory. Savouries on offer include the classic “southern sushi” cheese roll and, as you’d expect, there’s plenty of chocolate-based desserts like triple layer chocolate cake, chocolate butter pancakes and slices aplenty. You can stock up on Liz’s excellent range of craft chocolate bars, too.
The star of the warehouse district’s foodie renewal is Vogel St Kitchen. The Victorian red-brick has been restored and turned into a stylish Sydney-esque eatery, which uses locally free-farmed pork, chicken and eggs. A wood-fired pizza oven turns out sandwiches and pizzas for lunch and an all-day brunch menu features favourites like granola, waffles, stacks and warming soups.
Leave all that city-centre heritage behind and head south to ‘surf city’ Dunedin. Take a seat at the window of Katrina Toovey’s Esplanade Restaurant and watch the true southern men and women surfing the point break in the frigid waters off St Clair Beach. Shiver empathetically while tucking into plates of ravioli in burnt butter sauce, or spicy pork salami pizza cooked in their wood-fired pizza oven.
No7 Balmac.
Katrina has form in the Dunedin dining scene with No7 Balmac in Maori Hill, helmed by chef and co-owner Billy Allan. The site was chosen for its extensive garden (they even employ a gardener) and this informs their menu of crowd-pleasing, wood-grilled meat and seafood. You don’t see old-school desserts like pastry chef Penny Allan’s Black Doris plum bombe Alaska on menus all that often, but we wish you did – plum ice cream on a moist and moreish, warm chocolate brownie base encased in toasted meringue shell.
Down in St Clair, Katrina has taken the old “Kiwi-Italian” Esplanade and given it an authentic Italian makeover with an all-day menu of Mediterranean flavours, which has seen it quickly become a favourite for those lucky locals.
Seafood in classic combinations in a kitsch setting. That’s Plato, across the tracks in the city’s grungy waterfront warehousing area. There you’ll find the oceanic celebrities of Otago such as littleneck clams, blue cod and paua to enjoy with a beer from their in-house Birch Street Brewery.
Just south of Plato, down Wharf Street, is a rising star of the craft brewing scene. Steamer Basin beers, made seasonably, locally and naturally, are available from the brewery door and at the Otago Farmers’ Market.
Otago Farmer’s Market.
On that topic, make sure you clear a Saturday morning to visit the market by the Renaissance Revival Dunedin Railway Station.
It’s a snapshot of Dunedin’s talented food and drink producers. There’s bacon sarnies and coffee to insulate and live music to appreciate as you stock up on fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, bakery (and unbakery) items, small goods, preserves, beer, wine, eggs and flowers (edible and otherwise).
Make sure you clear a Tuesday night, too, then kilt up and get along for deep-fried haggis balls and some live fiddle-dee-dee music at Stuart Street’s Albar whisky bar – it’s an offal experience… sorry.
Pizza at Esplanade Restaurant.
We mean to finish as we started: with a beer. Emerson’s Taproom and Restaurant is the new home of the pioneering Dunedin craft label which has hit the mainstream after being acquired by brewing giant Lion. Their new $25 million digs on Anzac Ave are a handy stop-off for rugby fans on their way to Forsyth Barr Stadium. You can watch the brewery in action from the dining room while enjoying their menu of upmarket pub food and also nab a takeaway of their limited-edition beers at the taproom.
Don’t miss
It’s an oldie but a goodie. Highgate Bridge in Roslyn is like a bake sale in heaven: tablecloth-covered, fold-out tables are lined with decadent tarts of chocolate and caramel, apricot, apple, pecan and pear. Meals of confit of duck, navarin of lamb and macaroni of salmon, leek and mushroom sit in the nearby chiller. Then there’s quiche in many flavours and surprises like their amazing stuffed chicken breast in pastry.
Chef and owner Jim Byars crowned a career in top kitchens around the world with eight years working for the legendary Roux brothers at their three-Michelin-starred Le Gavroche and other properties including their butchery-delicatessen Boucherie Lamartine. It’s given him a store of skills and recipes in classic French cooking that is fairly unique in this country. In among the architectural gems around Maori Hill, the unassuming Highgate Bridge is a treasure. It’s worth noting that hardly anyone calls it Highgate Bridge; it’s known as The Friday Shop because he only opens on Friday and only takes cash. The rest of the time he’s busily preparing everything he sells from scratch, like the puff pastry, croissant dough, stocks and soups.
You could dine for the week on their prepared meals, but if you’re eating those tarts in any great quantity you’ll probably need to chase them with a few statins. It’s also worth noting that one of the finest almond croissants in New Zealand awaits in Jim’s shop each Friday; crispy croissant dough embedded with glossy almond slivers encloses a rich almond paste filling. That little group of shops in Roslyn has quite a lively food scene with local stalwart Rhubarb and Kiki Beware also in attendance.
Try…
Urban wineries are growing in popularity around the world, to engage city dwellers in the wine-making process near where they live rather than out by the vineyards.
Last year, Cromwell winemaker Brendan Seal took hand-picked Central Otago pinot noir grapes and trucked them to the Terminus building in Dunedin’s warehouse precinct to work his magic. The resulting 2016 Urbn Vino and 2016 Writer’s Block Pinot Noir wines have just been bottled and are now available online.
Brendan is currently scouting new locations for a permanent cellar door, wine-making and bottling facility in Dunedin. He says people are so interested in the way things are made these days – from beer to cheese to chocolate – that it makes sense to bring wine-making into the inner city. He wants to introduce wine drinkers to the quality and variety of Central Otago pinot noir along with different wine-making styles.
The craft scale of his operation means he can highlight regional differences in the pinot noir and do things like limited-edition runs from a particular barrel. Urban wineries are idea factories and the central location allows him to easily set up collaborations with other creative Dunedin hospitality businesses.
This first appeared in Taste magazine.
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