Homegrown hero
like St John, pared-back and making the most of undervalued ingredients in a convivial way. What music, if any, do you listen to while cooking?
N: When I'm cooking at home, it’s usually a Sunday and Queen will be on. Biggest kitchen disaster?
N: For our first pop-up in Paris, we were up cooking until 4am as I finished work at 12am and was able to use our work kitchen. I’d timed the lamb shanks so I could turn off the oven and leave them to finish cooking in the heat and cool down in there. It was a big mistake; we arrived back at 8am and the lamb was dried out and burned on top. We made it work with almost half of it lost, and have never left anything like that to chance again. Your guilty pleasure?
E: Anything fried. A fat burger and fries. In all your travels, where have you experienced the best food?
E: Paris is an amazing city for eating food by great chefs and often at reasonable prices. Otherwise we’d say Italy, for fresh produce, great seafood and to-die-for cured meats. Portuguese food is another favourite; it’s so rustic and delicious. One cookbook you keep going back to?
N: Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose To Tail by Fergus Henderson. The kitchen utensil you can't live without?
E: I’ve learned from Nick that a good knife and a decent sized chopping board do a lot of the job! But one thing a home cook might not have is a microplane – super-useful! You’re currently craving?
E: Grazing through the summer on fresh veges, cheeses, cured meats, raw fish, oysters and all other yummy things. Craving the graze and laze rather than anything in particular! Any advice to new cooks?
N: Passion, patience and hard work go a long way in good cooking. Also for new chefs, to not be short-sighted. A view of the long run and setting goals for yourself are important for pro chefs. You have to have a thick skin and believe in yourself. @bar_celeste barceleste.com
Ting, ting, ting… everybody, listen up.
Please join us in offering a toast and saying a big, heartfelt congrats to Nick Loosley of Everybody Eats, whose ‘pay-asyou-feel’ project has won him Kiwibank’s New Zealand Local Hero of the Year award. If you’re not already familiar with it, Everybody Eats is a super-smart and utterly heartwarming scheme that is using food to address three pressing social problems – isolation, food waste and poverty.
At two Auckland venues – a Monday night pop-up at Gemmayze Street restaurant in St Kevin’s Arcade on K’ Road and a permanent eatery in Onehunga – Nick and his team of volunteers serve up a delicious three-course meal, and if you can’t pay for them, you don’t. This is no soup kitchen, however; paying diners are also encouraged to come and eat and mingle. So, for example, you can rock up with your family and friends and once you’ve eaten, pop what you think the meal is worth, or more, in the koha tin. During the meal you might find yourselves sitting next to a CEO, a homeless person, a tourist, a pensioner, a single dad and his kids, a local family, a student, an office worker… and that’s the beauty of it. People who wouldn’t normally share a meal sit together and connect over quality, hearty food made from ingredients that are mainly donated. Everybody Eats works with Kiwiharvest, New World, Daily Bread, Lewis Road, Karma Cola and others who collect and provide food that would otherwise have gone to waste. Nick emphasises it’s essential to attract paying customers as it allows them to cover the costs of those who can’t afford to pay. Also, as demand grows, Everybody Eats needs more volunteers – from chefs and dishwashers, to kitchen preppers and front-of-house staff. While the Gemmayze Street pop-up has had to temporarily close due to Covid-19, the Onehunga eatery is still up and running – as a takeaway service for now – and still needs people helping to prep and serve. Keep an eye on their website for updates.
As for that award, Nick – who owns and runs two restaurants in the Bay of Islands – says: “I don’t think of it as an award for me as an individual but rather for the organisation as a whole, and in particular our volunteers. But to be recognised on a national level is huge for Everybody Eats. It means so much to all of our volunteers, who come week in, week out to help us on our mission to tackle food waste, food poverty and social isolation.”