THE GOOD FAT champion
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FLORIDITAS Wellington
Some chefs stumble into cooking by chance, while others know it’s their calling from the moment they pick up their first wooden spoon. Julie Clark is firmly in the latter camp. The co-owner of Floriditas, one of Wellington’s longest running cafes, says growing up on a 24-acre farm in Whanganui with a mother who didn’t particularly like cooking set her on her culinary path from an early age.
“We had sheep and cattle and Mum grew veges and fruit, so we ate very seasonally,” says Julie. “My father bought me eight volumes of the British Super Cook cookbooks and I worked my way through those.”
When she was 13, part-time work at a French restaurant opened her eyes to choux pastry and the perfect omelette. Apart from a detour into a law degree, Julie has been involved with food her entire adult life, everywhere from the Okavango Delta in Botswana, where she cooked at a hunting lodge, to London and Auckland, where she worked for Jo Seagar’s Harley’s restaurant for two years.
In Wellington, her home for 32 years, you can’t throw a wine glass without hitting a cafe Julie has owned: from Clark’s in Roseneath to
Nikau in the City Gallery and Loretta in Cuba Street. There was also the eponymous cafe she operated in the Palmerston North Library.
But her most enduring venture is Floriditas, which she and husband James Pedersen opened 15 years ago. The light, airy cafe looks as though a slice of Europe was dropped into Wellington: all high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows and luxuriously textured wallpaper.
Although Floriditas is Julie’s third ‘baby’ (she and James have two adult sons), a year or so ago she realised she was tired. “Although James and I want to stay in hospitality, the pressure of running an operation from 7am until 10pm seven days a week, as well as a bakery that supplies both Floriditas and Loretta, was getting a bit much. I had to bring in some fresh blood.”
Roll the clock back to 2017, when Julie met Kiwi chef Hayden Mcmillan, formerly of the French Café, Vinnies and Merediths, who at the time was running his celebrated Melbourne restaurant Etta with wife Dominique.
“James and I ate at Etta and were totally in thrall to Hayden’s food and his style,which is tasty, modern and interesting, just like him.”
When Hayden flew over to collaborate with Floriditas for 2018’s Wellington on a Plate, the idea of partnering with him and his wife began to take hold. But Julie wasn’t sure he’d be keen. “Floriditas is old school and Hayden’s a millennial who makes cool food. But I knew we could learn from each other.”
As it turned out, Hayden and Dominique had been keen to get back to New Zealand to raise their infant daughter so jumped at the chance to buy into Floriditas. That was back in January and the foursome were happily finding their groove – Julie with ordering, admin and the bakery, Hayden with the menu and kitchen staff, James with the wine list and Dom with front of house – when Covid struck.
“We were on track for our best year yet and then it all stopped,” says Julie with a deep sigh.
But the global pandemic also gave them a chance to upgrade the bathrooms and knock through a wall in the kitchen to make it more open plan, before turning their attention to the menu. Julie was keen they didn’t alienate regulars so Floriditas' famous Fish Pie, a feature for 15 years, stayed. Hayden's contribution has been more plant-based dishes, such as the Black Truffle Risotto with Mushrooms, Walnuts, Lemon and Watercress, and the Red Leicester Cheese Doughnuts with Caramelised Onion, which elevate simple but layered flavours to greatness (which is why they often sell out).
Previously, Julie admits Floriditas wasn’t on many millennials’ radars at night, possibly because of the price point. But thanks to Hayden's more wallet-friendly dishes, such as Fried Kūmara Custard and a Home-made Burger – that’s no longer the case.
“It’s not the restaurant I envisioned 15 years ago, in fact it’s better! I needed Hayden to come in and shake things up. It’s also freed me to write a cookbook, which I’ve been talking about for ages.”
SUPER Lyttelton
You might say Sahni Bennett has eight tamariki. Even though one of them is bricks and mortar. The mum-of-seven’s youngest baby is the restaurant SUPER, which she launched three years ago in a grand old building on Lyttelton’s waterfront.
Sahni had always loved the 1860s heritage site on the windswept Norwich Quay – so when in 2017 she spotted a sign advertising a space to lease, she jumped at the opportunity.
“It’s such an amazing piece of architecture; it had been closed for several years undergoing earthquake reinforcing work.”
Some people may agonise long and hard, when setting up a restaurant, about the ambience they want to create, the type of food, the décor. For Sahni, it was – like much of the ingredients she plates up – absolutely organic.
For starters, her ties to the surrounding land and whenua – she is Ngāti Makō and Wairewa – means the menu has a distinct local and indigenous flavour, with much of the food foraged from around the Banks Peninsula
(an activity all the staff take part in).
“I have a big rambling yard too, and my children and I grow a lot of food. I am studying permaculture and I hope to grow more with the kids every season.”
But what really sets these dishes apart is their fusion with Japanese cuisine. It might seem like an unusual clash of cultures, but Sahni says the marriage makes total culinary sense. “Both cuisines have very clean flavours, so they complement each other perfectly.”
The former owner of central Christchurch cafes Barbadoes and Beat Street had fallen in love with Japanese food and cuisine when travelling. And so now on the menu you’ll find a nod to her Māori heritage generously laced with Japanese influence, and vice versa: the likes of Salt Baked Kūmara with Japanese Salsa and Wasabi Crema; a vegan ramen with the option of including hāngī-style pork belly; Local Line Caught Ika in a Kombu Dashi Broth; and ‘Bao Hangi’ – made with pork belly, pickled cucumber and kewpie. Many of the dishes are plant-based with freshness, sustainability and nutrition at their core.
The Japanese influence extends to the drinks selection – alongside chiefly New Zealand wines you’ll find Nigori Umeshu plum wine, sake, and cocktails including the Super Sour (Sencha Green Tea and Japanese Whiskey) and even a Sriracha Sake Bloody Mary. “I like to push the boundaries a little and get interesting blends and wines with cool backgrounds from uncommon regions. Our cocktails all have a Japanese element and a native/māori layer.”
As for the décor, Sahni wanted to keep things simple to let the architecture shine. The natural light that floods in through the huge windows is juxtaposed with large neon signs. The earthy feel of the wooden table tops and bar counter – made entirely out of reclaimed timber from the original build
– the timber window frames, the plants trailing from the lofty ceiling, the soft pink/ purple neon glow… it all adds up to an ambience that’s like an embrace. “I wanted it to be warm and welcoming,” says Sahni.
In one corner is a carved totem gifted to the building by local Rāpaki Marae. The old school chairs Sahni picked up for $3 each.
“I LOVE a challenge so sourcing things for cheap that just kind of aesthetically fell together was such a fun ride.”
It has all come together beautifully, but Sahni is especially stoked that her restaurant has been able to give back to the land by supporting local and organic food producers.
“We are humble... but doing really great things.”
GATHERINGS Christchurch
Pivoting. It’s the 2020 zeitgeist. But chef
Alex Davies, owner of Gatherings restaurant in Christchurch, was pivoting long before it became the manoeuvre du jour. His first bout of ‘rethinking everything’ came at age 18, when he followed his parents to New Zealand from the UK. Having no idea what to do, “I enrolled in a chef course simply to make friends”. He ended up loving it. Then, in 2012, in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes, he responded to the needs of a broken, demoralised city with Local Food Project.
The pop-up sold home-made pizza from a wood-fired oven, using local produce.
Much had been lost, but Alex’s aim was to celebrate what Canterbury still had – “to show people the beauty of the landscape outside of the city.”
For 18 months after that he co-owned and ran acclaimed tiny restaurant Shop Eight, followed by a stint working on an organic vegetable farm in North Canterbury. It was this experience that defined what was to be Gatherings.
Seeing the hard work of the vegetable growers, Alex wanted to turn the spotlight on them, making the fruit of their labours the focus of his new eatery. “It doesn’t have to be all about the chef; it can be just as much about the product.”
The year Gatherings opened, it scooped Best New Metropolitan Restaurant at the
2017 Good Food Awards. A modern-casual fine-dining restaurant, the menu had seafood, vegetables and sustainability at its heart.
“I wanted it to be small and intimate, and to be involved in every aspect. I wanted to work with small growers, farmers and fishermen, and do it on a sustainable level, without pushing them to overproduce. We wanted to give people what we think is a reflection of Canterbury and a reflection of sustainable farming and fishing practices.”
However, the experience of lockdown in March forced not so much of a pivot as a gentle turning of the gaze to assess the community’s new emotional needs. What
Alex had been doing was certainly working, but it no longer suited the ‘new normal’.
“I decided to create a more grazing menu. It felt more appropriate; having experienced lockdown, cooking for my family every night. That felt good to me. To make it more of a family thing. To just put the food down on the table, rather than people having to listen to me talking about it for 10 minutes. That can be preachy. Not everyone wants to know everything about every ingredient. And that’s okay. If people want an explanation about what we’re doing that’s cool. But if they just want to enjoy some beautiful plates with their friends and family, that’s okay too.”
It’s still all there from its original incarnation – the polished timber floorboards, the picnic-style wooden tables
(“a friend made all the furniture for me from recycled timber”), the beautiful soft lighting, and that menu. The fabulous salt-baked beets, the crispy squid with porcini, the potato doughnuts with aioli and herbs, the famous takeout fish suppers (just $45 for two). But the vibe is subtly different; it’s more approachable, says Alex.
“It’s a relaxed space. It just feels like a nice place to be. I think it’s the spirit of it, and our approach more than anything that’s changed.”
That’s meant a shift in the clientele. “We’re getting more diverse groups; we used to get people coming with just a partner or a friend, but because the style is more social and friendly we get people coming in as group. And you can spend as little or as much as you want. So you can be a real foodie or bring your mates out who just want to eat something good.”
That philosophy of care is helped by having a front-of-house manager, Nicolas, who happens to love cooking. “During the day he helps me in the kitchen; that gives him a lot more insight into what goes on behind the dishes.”
While there’s no denying it has been a panic-inducing year, Alex sees one overriding positive: people have come to realise the importance of restaurants.
“They want us to be here. They see the significance of the good local restaurant who is doing things properly, sourcing from the local community. It creates a cycle where we all come up together, they want to support that. Restaurants were taken away from them during lockdown, and that showed them how important it is to have a space outside the home they can relax in and be looked after.”
And at Gatherings, people can be looked after in space that is “beautifully unique”.
“It’s my idea and that of the people around me who worked to create it. It’s not a concept; it’s just developed organically. You can feel that when you walk in. It’s what people love about this place. It’s evolved over time but has retained that caring, community atmosphere. I am really proud of it.”