Michael Meredith

Three years ago, Michael Meredith closed his dégustation-only restaurant Merediths to spend more time with his family. The hiatus has done him good and he’s returned with a refreshed outlook at Mr Morris. “Maturity changes the way you cook. Merediths was more technique driven, where here it’s about having great ingredients, simple cooking and putting as much flavour as you can in the dish,” says Meredith. Much of that flavour comes from the smoke and fire of the asado grill, as Meredith strips back his cooking to its purest form. The space is elegant too, all raw concrete, blonde timber and softened light filtering in through Venetian blinds.

“It’s about the New Zealand landscape,” he says. “We are such a new culture when it comes to food, our taste and our palates are very diverse.” So there are influences from different cuisines – Mexican mole; rice gnocchi akin to Korean tteokbokki, served with

pāua, okra and corn – but the main focus is using local produce to create dishes that are at once familiar and new. The pain au black pudding, like a fancy sausage roll, and the salt and vinegar oyster mushrooms conjure salty summer nights at the beach. “It’s about bringing that element of influence and somehow elevating it. You try it, you recognise it, but it’s slightly changed and will leave you with an even better memory.”

Anybody who has tried pani popo in Samoa will know what he means when you try them here. The sweet scent of coconut that hits your nose as you rip into the hot dough will invoke island memories of the tinfoil-baked treats from the markets. But here they are stuffed with coconut toffee and served with the tartest passionfruit sorbet. It’s likely that the next time you think of pani popo, you’ll only be able to think of the ones at Mr Morris.