LAND of PLENTY

New Zealand is a small country with a big harvest. Young chefs are drawing upon that bounty to create a distinctive national cuisine.

- Jeff Chu

Picnicking at Flockhill, a luxury lodge on a sheep station outside Christchurch.

If, BY SOME miracle of time travel, you journeyed back a millennium to what would one day become New Zealand, you would find no humans, no sheep, and no other land mammals except for two types of bat. The 700-island archipelago was settled in the 1200s by Polynesian seafarers—ancestors of today’s Māori—who brought kumara (sweet potatoes), taro, and yams.

The British, who first arrived with Captain James Cook in 1769, introduced grapevines, cows, and pigs. The settlers turned New Zealand, with its fertile land and rolling hills, into an agricultural powerhouse that today yields superb meat, wine, and dairy products. (This nation of just 5.3 million people exports more milk than any other.) But while Kiwi produce has found its way into kitchens worldwide—my husband, Tristan, and I buy New Zealand butter at our local Costco in Grand Rapids, Michigan—its cuisine has garnered less recognition.

Chef Jono Thevenard, left, at his Auckland restaurant, Pici, with collaborator Kia Kanuta

Perhaps that’s because Kiwi cookery defies easy definition. A few decades ago, it could have been characterized as an old-school derivative of British food—meat and potatoes, fish-and-chips, perhaps a pavlova for dessert. But waves of immigration—nearly a third of today’s New Zealanders were born elsewhere—have vastly diversified New Zealand’s palate. Last year, 91 restaurants were honored with Cuisine magazine “hats,” the Michelin star’s Kiwi cousin. Among them, you'll find places serving French, Samoan, Indian, Japanese, and Cuban food, as well as abundant fusion cooking.