If you’re talking food in Southland, Ethan’s name will pop up. Ethan Flack has built a reputation not just as a brilliant chef but as a voice of substance: someone who brings people around the table and brings producers, growers, and young cooks along with him. He’s Southland through and through:…
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Cam Davies is a head-down, lamb-in-the-oven, let-the-food-speak type. He is the executive chef and co-owner of The Fat Duck in Te Anau, and this year, the restaurant was named Supreme Winner at the 2025 New Zealand Gastropub Awards, as well as Best in the Lower South Island. Not a bad follow-up to…
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There’s a giant swede grinning at you, along the state highway headed south from Queenstown - just out of Winton. That’s Wilson’s Vege Stall, and if you’re even halfway curious about what Southland tastes like, you’ll want to pull over. There’s nothing flashy here – no slick marketing, no…
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Mrs Pickles, now rarely called Josie Robinson, is bottling up the kind of pickles, jams, and chutneys that taste like they came straight out of Nana’s kitchen. And that’s exactly the point. “When I was pregnant with my third child, I wanted those flavours I grew up with – the ones my Nana made. I…
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On a stretch of farmland as you drive South from Queenstown, where sheep have grazed for generations, Garston Hops is quietly changing the landscape. James McNamee, whose family has worked this land for 145 years, always knew the farm had more to give. In 2016, between the rolling pastures and the…
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Gadoochi Brewing is what happens when creativity, hard graft, and a love for the craft come together. It all started in a small Roxburgh orchard, where Chris and Nicola found themselves with more apples than they could handle. Rather than let them go to waste – or drown them in sugar like so many…
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Raised in Bluff by a family of gatherers and fishers, local chef Haylee-Chanel Simeon, known simply as Hayz to her hometown whānau, grew up in a world where kaimoana was abundant and freely shared. “We’re so spoilt down here. We never had to pay for kaimoana,” she says. That upbringing shaped her…
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If you live in Invercargill, you already know Kate French. And if you don’t, you’ll be able to spot her. She’s that smiley face behind the coffee machine at The Batch Cafe. Or she’s dressed as a cheese roll. Either way, she’ll make you feel like you’re in the right place. Kate owns the Invercargill…
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There’s no shortage of wild deer in Fiordland. They’re a pest. And for Chris Thorn, a lifelong hunter and gatherer, they’ve also always been an opportunity. Most venison in New Zealand ends up cooked or hot-smoked. Chris wanted something different, more in line with the old-school European methods…
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Bill French has been farming since before he could remember. “I’ve been on the land since I could walk,” he says. “It’s in the blood, I couldn’t do anything else.” He’s a big bloke, the kind whose handshake leaves an impression. That handshake has become the symbol of Leelands Lamb, not as a…
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