FISH FOR COMPLIMENTS

Ispent last weekend in the small fishing village of Moeraki, on the South Island’s east coast north of Dunedin and south of Oamaru. It’s probably most famous for the large and spherical Moeraki boulders, scattered along a stretch of Koekohe Beach, but in recent years, for some people, that fame has been surpassed by a restaurant called Fleur’s Place. It’s run by the ebullient Fleur Sullivan, whose slightly ramshackle restaurant sits right on the water near the old jetty and gets its fish in fresh every day.

The menu at Fleur’s is pretty simple; for our mains we had the tasting plate for two — five kinds of fresh fish, pan-fried and your choice of sauces. The skin-on gurnard was a highlight, alongside fillets of red cod, monkfish, rig and sole. For sauces we went with traditional tartare, which was excellent, and the caper and lime aioli, which I thought I’d try making when I got home.

The night before that very long lunch at Fleur’s, we had dinner at the Moeraki Tavern, which boasts a damn good seafood chowder on its menu, as well as fresh blue cod. The cod was beer-battered, which went well with a pint of Speight’s, and it reminded me of a beer batter recipe given to me by chef Jimmy Gerard a few years ago. Jimmy had a small shop in Ponsonby Central called Jimmy the Fish, and as well as sharing his famous beer batter recipe (he always uses Lion Red), he also taught me to fillet sardines. If you’re lucky enough to have people in your life who have been fishing, this is a great way to cook it.