Pasture (Auckland, New Zealand)
Cooking with fire dominates the menu at Pasture.| Credit: Ed Verner
On paper, Ed Verner’s Auckland restaurant looks and sounds much like any ambitious fine-dining spot. Even the name, Pasture, references ubiquitous and vague agrarian farm-to-table values. But I was pleasantly surprised at every turn during my late summer meal, which is served at a counter to only 12 guests each evening, six at a time. The playlist sets the mood, veering from Indeep’s “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” to The Cure’s “Lullaby” without a hint of incongruity. In front of me, a wood fire blazed in a multi-functional oven, with meat and fish and vegetables hanging near the heat or nestled in the coals. Much of Verner’s food straddles the line between sweet and savory: a bracing cool, clear soup made from the husk and silk of corn, served alongside a peach dusted with fennel pollen; a slice of John Dory sashimi wrapped around pickled chamomile that is floral but restrained and utterly lovely. The meal is made up of more than a dozen dishes, most of them tiny and bright, leaving you room to truly enjoy the final savory course: 120-day aged Wagyu that has been cooking in that fiery oven throughout the meal. Served with rhubarb, geranium, and aloe vera, it is easily the best piece of red meat I’ve eaten this year. pastureakl.com
“Going into a lockdown, you realize what places you are missing. I want to eat kebab in Istanbul; I want to be in Mérida [Mexico], strolling around the markets eating tacos; I want to go to Tokyo and have sushi. I miss, desperately, the beaches of Australia–I dream of having a barbecue on Smiths Beach in Western Australia.”
– RENÉ REDZEPI, NOMA, COPENHAGEN
