“I never wanted an empire; I wanted a place where I could express myself and do what I love.”
Celebrated Wellington chef Monique Fiso has re-opened her lauded restaurant, Hiakai, with a menu that she believes is the best of her career. Like many restaurateurs, she has had to overcome new challenges as a result of the lockdown, but she believes New
Monique Fiso has cooked in Michelinstarred New York eateries, but her heart lies in Aotearoa.
AMatariki menu, a celebration of new beginnings: how apt. The cooking fires are burning again at New Zealand’s most celebrated restaurant, Wellington’s Hiakai. And, following the unprecedented COVID-19 lockdown, New Zealand foodies are practically banging down the door.
The heat surrounding Hiakai’s owner and head chef, Monique Fiso, has never died down. It’s been building since her return home from the Michelin-starred kitchens of New York to start New Zealand’s only restaurant specialising in Māori cooking.
If you don’t know who Fiso is yet, don’t worry – you’re about to. The September release of her cookbook, Hiakai, is set to redefine the way Kiwi chefs approach indigenous ingredients and cooking methods. She’s at the vanguard of establishing a truly New Zealand-centric supply chain and ethos about food. When the New Zealand chefs of the future namecheck their influences, expect Fiso to be one of the first on their lips.
Hiakai has been open for less than two years, but the accolades have been piling up. It featured on Time magazine’s 2019 list of the World’s 100 Greatest Places and Fiso’s rising international profile led to her being asked to guide acerbic English chef Gordon Ramsay around the country, to dig a hāngi pit and hunt wild goats for his Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted television show.
Her Matariki-themed menu, which debuted when the restaurant reopened, wasn’t written in the stars. Hiakai’s degustation menu is designed around Māori myths and legends and, before the country shut up shop, Fiso’s kitchen team were prepping one based on Whaitiri, the Māori goddess of thunder.
Is there a more doom-laden and pandemic-ish sound than thunder? A reminder of our powerlessness before the forces of nature? “Coming out of lockdown, we thought, ‘Do we really want to be telling this story?’” says the 30-year-old Porirua-born chef. “It’s not dark and gloomy, because it actually has a positive ending – but, you know, thunder and lightning.”
After a mad scramble to pack down her restaurant for stage 4 lockdown, Fiso says she spent a week in bed recovering. But, for a chef famous for her dedication to excellence attained as a result of a punishing work regimen, that was never going to last. She decided it was time to prepare for reopening, and that just happened to coincide with Matariki – the rise of the Pleiades star cluster and the start of the Māori new year.
“Fortunately for me, in my bubble was my partner, Katie [Monteith], who is also the operations manager at the restaurant. So home turned into a satellite version of Hiakai.”
With only Fiso and Monteith allowed into Hiakai during lockdown, creating her new menu was a challenge. Cooking is a hands-on profession and it was difficult to share ideas, flavours and ingredients with her team. “There was a lot of Zoom chat; it was almost like holding a private cooking programme.” The result, says Fiso, are seven courses that she believes are the best of her career.
Fiso’s mission is to modernise and popularise Māori cuisine and it has taken years of research, experimentation and no small amount of foraging in our native bush, with advice from local luminaries such as chef Joe McLeod – an expert on traditional Māori cooking – and indigenous food supplier John Millwood.
But also at the forefront of the dining experience at Hiakai is Manaakitanga – the concept of Māori hospitality. “I want people to understand why things are done in a certain way,” says Fiso. Hiakai’s menu delves into the past – of Māori myth and legend, technique and ingredients – brings them into the present and maps out a path for indigenous New Zealand cuisine into the future.
CUSTARD SQUARE
Innovative ideas and skilful execution are the hallmarks of a great chef. Fiso learnt that from her first days in a professional kitchen, under the tutelage of renowned Wellington chef Martin Bosley. His insistence that there are no rules when it comes to flavours and plating were key lessons for a freshly minted chef, straight out of Wellington Institute of Technology’s cooking programme. “When I think of some of the dishes, such as pan-fried grouper with parsley ice cream, he was looking at food totally differently. I was so glad I worked for him at that age. I think it set me up for the rest of my career.”
Her new menu is a synthesis of those early lessons. “The first two courses, which are based on Papatūānuku, the Earth mother, and Tupu-ā-nuku, the eldest of Matariki’s daughters, are done using basically the same ingredients in two different ways,” she says.
The first dish uses modern techniques to make a pork consommé with kūmara and butternut dumplings and kawakawa kimchi. The next is a terrine with a honey-miso dressing. “I hope people enjoy the fact that these dishes present totally different flavours from the same ingredients, and it links the interlinking stories of Papatūānuku
“HOME TURNED INTO A SATELLITE VERSION OF HIAKAI.”
MONIQUE FISO
and Tupu-ā-nuku really well.” Her Matariki petit fours course has been given a Kiwiana makeover, motivated by themes of love and remembrance. There’s a Jaffa bonbon, a lamington made with harakeke seeds, an extremely artistic berry pavlova and “possibly the cutest and most technical custard square in the country”. The fantastically intricate chocolate detail on the squares came thanks to a friend who used a laser cutter to create the moulds – in exchange for a beer.
Among the emerging trends in fine dining, Fiso says non-alcoholic drinks and matching have become increasingly popular. “You should be making drinks that have the same level of thought as the food.
“During lockdown, I upskilled on my drinks. While I was making food, I looked at how better to match the non-alcoholic pairings, and people have been raving about them.”
One drink she’s particularly proud of – so much so that it is named after her childhood nickname, ‘Neeky’ – is made with a capsicum-verjuice base, which is then strained and finished with yuzu, orange zest, zero per cent non-alcoholic lager and a bit of honey syrup. “It doesn’t sound like it should work, but it’s delicious,’’ says Fiso. It’s matched to her Waitī and Waitā course. “They’re twins, responsible for the land invertebrates, such as bees and ants that are an essential part of life, and the course is all about honey and pollen.”
THESE CHANGING TIMES
Fiso believes that restaurants will have to find new ways to operate as the industry grapples with the postCOVID world. “With social distancing meaning we needed one metre between each table, we had to reorganise the way we do our seating.” The reduced seating forced them to institute two set seating times for the meals, and time pressures meant they
“WE’VE HAD TO GET CREATIVE, CALL IN FAVOURS, FIND A FRIEND.” MONIQUE FISO
had to refine their usual menu of six, eight and 10 courses and serve one seven-course degustation.
Being shut for two months meant a huge loss of revenue, and that had flow-on effects for the new menu. “Usually when we change a menu we buy lots of new things to complement it,” she says.
They’d often visit the Alchemist’s Table, for example, to buy a specific plate, or get one custom-made, “But not knowing what the future was going to be like, hearing all these bleak stories and having to cut back the amount of reservations by 10 people a night, we decided we wouldn’t be able to buy anything new.
“We’ve had to get creative, call in favours, find a friend and really knuckle down on the flavours of the food to let that do the talking, because we can’t go spending thousands on crockery.”
The lockdown has forced restaurants to look local and, if nothing else, that should be seen as a positive outcome for New Zealand cuisine as we seek to market the country as more than an adventure and scenic destination. “Restaurants have had to think a lot harder about how they put dishes together, based on the border,” says Fiso. “I think it’s kind of cool.
“I have friends who own French and Spanish restaurants. They’ve had to explain to their regulars that they might not be able to get certain imported ingredients for three to six months. They’ve started serving cheese from the Wairarapa, as opposed to one from somewhere just outside Paris.” The global pandemic may be a chance for New Zealand restaurants to future-proof their supply chains, in case the border ever has to close again. This may spur chefs and home cooks alike to pay greater attention to indigenous ingredients. “If the borders close again, at least we know we’ll have access to kawakawa, horopito, karamū, kiekie, karamu, pikopiko – we’re not going to have to rely on a freight ship.”
Hiakai is the only dedicated Māori restaurant in the country. It’s probably fair to say that we’ve been very tardy in elevating and promoting Māori cuisine within New Zealand, and to the world. “While it’s cool to be the only one, it’s also kind of sad,” says Fiso. “I hope there will be more in the future.”
Before setting up Hiakai in the country’s capital, she says there were overtures about opening in Auckland. The desire to be close to her family won the day for Wellington, but Fiso says she has also been asked about setting up a Hiakai outpost in the City of Sails.
For now, that’s not on the cards: “Some people are great at having multiple restaurants,” she says. “I never wanted an empire, I wanted a place where I could express myself and do what
I love.”
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