Auckland's Pasture - a unique dining experience

PASTURE 

Cuisine: one tasting menu each season

Address: 235 Parnell Road, Parnell, Auckland  
Phone: they do not take phone calls
Website 
Drinks: bespoke drink pairings or local wines by the bottle
Reservations: essential

Dining at Pasture was an experience like no other I have had. It is certainly a restaurant like no other in New Zealand and one where you can genuinely describe your evening as an experience, not just a meal.

Chef Ed Verner and his team have won every award going, and so much about their approach is kinda mind-blowing. Consider this: they currently serve one 20 course tasting menu that changes seasonally; there are three sittings, four nights a week - 5.15pm, 7.15pm and 9pm - with a mere six people at each sitting; Pasture "cannot accommodate dietary restrictions such as vegetarian, pescatarian, no egg, or no dairy"; and it is by my reckoning the most expensive degustation menu in New Zealand.

Pasture also offers paired drinks. One was a Garage Project Beer, the only regular thing I drank all night. If you don't choose the drink pairings there is a concise and uncommon wine list.   

The restaurant specialises in fermentation, pickling, preserving, curing and baking and they like cooking over fire. Obscure and time-consuming techniques are applied to every part of the freshest and rarest ingredients, nose to tail, root to flower.

Starting in the bar...

But what feels most unusual is that this does not take place in a reverential white table-clothed setting with hushed-voiced waiters. No, it all happens inside what resemble a couple of slightly dark Japanese sheds, where half a dozen chefs surprise you for a good three hours, first in the bar, then in the restaurant proper at the chef's counter, then across at a coffee table for dessert, all to an accompaniment of fairly loud eighties rock music.

With so many courses I'm mainly just going to go with a whole lot of photos to give an idea of the place. But here's how it started: the chefs welcomed us, shook our hands and seated us at a six-seater bar. Def Leppard was playing and they were already preparing food and drinks... 

...our first drink contained fresh strawberry, whisky, sake, and wasabi (Chef Verner grated the fresh wasabi in front of us - it came in handy later too). We were offered one stalk each of incredibly fresh chilled choy sum and white asparagus, the asparagus lightly pickled, lined with cured duck egg yolk and flowers, the choy sum dipped in elderflower vinegar with more flowers and nibs of something I forget. It was probably the best-tasting asparagus and choy sum I've ever eaten. That was a thought that occurred often during the meal. 

Then they topped up the second half of the drink with NZ bubbly, creating a totally different cocktail which went with the next two-bite snack that comprised wild strawberries and some sort of jelly (rose?) and something else all wrapped in pumpkin and a nasturtium leaf. As you can tell, this was no ordinary meal. We were on a journey through New Zealand produce...  

So, here we go. Things in italics are the drinks.

Strawberry & Nasturtium

Choy sum & white asparagus

 

Pumpkin & rose

Clos Henri, Blanc de Noir, Marlborough '16

 

Tomato 

(this is the second time in the week I had a dish just called "tomato" - the other was the sensational smoked tomato at Tauranga's Clarence Bistro. Here the chef explained that the first job each morning was to start the fire and, when it reached embers, hang the leaf-wrapped tomatoes in a sack to slowly cook over it for four hours. The pic may not look like much but the tomato tasted unbelievable!)

 

Courgette, aloe vera, almond

Distilled vegetable trim

(Distilled vegetable trim? Yep, waste veges - alcoholic, a bit like sake! It's the clear liquid in the small cups.) 

 

 

 

 

At the chef's counter...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young coconut, wasabi, salmon roe

Salted Rosé, raspberry, habanero

This was one we got to mix ourselves after they shaved on fresh coconut. The drink was the first of several where wine, this one rosé, had unexpected ingredients added.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oyster, white asparagus & mushroom

Riesling & green tomato

(Presented in an ice glass: "eat it quickly before the oysters - hidden under the mushroom - freeze & cook". Wow.)

 

Lobster Tail, fresh wasabi, verbena

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northland banana, leche de tigre

Zenkuro 'Junmai', Queenstown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young coconut squid                                                                                                                                                      Blue Abalone, Yuzu Kosho

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mushroom trim & black pepper (it's the soup)

 

Wheat & rye sourdough, six month aged butter

Garage Project 'Heels to Jesus', Wellington

Pasture is justifiably famous for the bread which takes around four days to make. The butter, meanwhile, was incredible, tasting like a cross between blue cheese and Parmesan.  

 

 

 

Fresh cheese, summer truffle

 

Aged smoked salmon, elderflower

Momento Mori 'Fist Full of flowers', Victoria '19

 

 

                         Snapper over embers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woodfired leek

Bellbird Spring 'Aeris', Waipara '12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The steak, aged 100 days

Patrick Sullivan, 'Rain', Cabernet Franc, Pinot Gris, Victoria '19

For each menu Pasture buys a whole wagyu beast. This bit, we were told, was from the shoulder. (In the same curious echo, earlier in the week I had had 55 day aged beef at Tauranga's Clarence Bistro. Which was amazing. This was, somehow, even better. Damn.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point we relocated to some low tables at the other side of the room and the second party of six moved through from the bar to the counter. The others took the chance to practice being Instagram influencers. I kept eating.

 

 

Then there were three dessert courses...

 

Lettuce, cheese & berries

Sparkling banana bread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuna

Sorrel & pine

BK, Pet Nat, Basket Range '20

 

Of course the tuna wasn't really tuna which was a relief from a dessert standpoint. Actually it was compressed watermelon wrapped in a leaf of some sort. The sorrel and pine involved crisp biscuits, cream and flowers and was really very groovy. As to the drink I have no memory of it whatsoever and no pics. I assume it existed...

 

And that was that. I could only get a reservation for the early session so we were in at 5.15pm and back at the hotel by 9pm, complete with our complimentary loaf of sourdough bread,  blown away by the meal, completely trashed from the cumulative effect of the drinks (do NOT plan to go out afterwards) and deliriously happy from the experience.

 

The cost - $260 p/p, drinks $180 p/p. Not cheap, but not something you'd do every day. And like those bloody credit card ads say: the experience - priceless. To finish off, here are some more pics of those chefs working their magic...  

 

Chef Ed Verner - wagyu!

Chef Ed Verner - fire!