THE MODERN CAVEMAN

Chef Vaughan Mabee talks about Amisfield, where fine dining takes a wild turn

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Under the helm of chef and co-owner Vaughan Mabee, Amisfield in Queenstown, New Zealand, is known as the "world's wildest dining experience".

A destination restaurant, Amisfield's culinary creations are crafted from locally-sourced and hunted ingredients, often by chef Mabee himself.

"It was difficult for me because I started my culinary career when I was really young. I moved away from New Zealand when I was a teenager and worked in a lot of different parts around the world, having spent time in the US and Europe, including Spain and Copenhagen. When I was done, I wanted to be on my own and cook, and I knew that I had to go back home.

"Coming back to New Zealand and having to create my first menu, I was super confused," says chef Mabee of the time when he first took over the reins at Amisfield in 2012.

"Being in the wild and living in the mountains, I do a lot of hunting. It's in my blood. Growing up wasn't like 'what are we going to get from the supermarket'; it was more like, we go catch and kill. I had forgotten a bit of that lifestyle because when you're in working in fancy restaurants, everything's coming in and you're cooking a little bit of a loin. The best parts of the animal aren't included.

"I got to the point where I know, scientifically speaking, if you had a small boar and you warmed it for six hours whole and you slowly cooked it, lathering it over like a fire, you can take the perfect parts out of that animal and plate it in a way where it looks like you're dining in the best restaurant in the world. But what you get from that is the honesty of the animal. You can have a piece of the neck, bit of the loin, the crackling and all the little parts of the animal, whether it's a wild boar or a small fallow deer or a rabbit, you can showcase the beauty of the wild.