Five minutes with Peter Gordon
Peter Gordon’s Auckland restaurant, dine, opened in Sky City’s Grand Hotel in 2005. The menu at dine is built around New Zealand ingredients — including manuka honey, kumara, baby paua, avocado oil and native herbs — combined with others from around the world, and Peter travels to Auckland four times a year to implement seasonal menu changes. He and his partner, Michael McGrath, have also invested in the Waitaki vineyard in Kurau, North Otago, where the wines will be made by New Zealand winemaker Michelle Richardson. They hope the region will develop a reputation for Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and other cool-climate varietals. The author of The Sugar Club Cookbook, Cook at Home with Peter Gordon, and A World In My Kitchen also consults for Air New Zealand, Tourism New Zealand, New Zealand Lamb, Foods from Spain, London’s Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK), the restaurant changa in Istanbul (where the dishes include Deniz Borulcesi, marsh samphire, with Verjus molasses and fava; and Turkish Coffee ice cream with changa biscotti and bitter almond liqueur) and PUBLIC in New York’s Manhattan (where a classic Kiwi pavlova features on the dessert menu). Peter is a patron of the London-based Children’s Fire and Burn Trust, having burnt himself badly at the age of just seven while cooking for his family. We asked Peter to take a short break from cooking while we asked him a few questions about his philosophy on food and dining.
Do you ever hanker after just a plain Vegemite sandwich on white bread?
“I’m not a fan of white bread, but I eat a huge amount of toast. It has to have some substance, though, and Vogel’s bread is near the top of my list.”
Do you agree with Gordon Ramsay that woman are no good in the kitchen?
“Ridiculous comment. No doubt it got him plenty of press, though. When I moved to live in Australia in 1981, the top three chefs in Australia were all women. A perfect kitchen in my view is half men and half women. Most women chefs I know find an all-female kitchen too much, and I find an all-male kitchen the same.”
After calling on your expertise, Britain’s Marks and Spencer chain launched a range of ready-made meals. Does it worry you that the ready-made trend in the UK has resulted in fewer people cooking at home, and do you anticipate the same thing happening in NZ?
“Ready-made meals here in the UK are almost a life-saver for some people. The pace of life is too fast and these meals at least provide variety to them. Better a few good ready-mades a week than baked beans and fish and chips every night. The food culture, and home-life culture, here in the UK is so different to NZ.
“In NZ you can pop out to a local café and have fairly good inexpensive food — in the UK that’s a lot harder. In the UK I know people who get in the front door at 8pm, absolutely shagged, so a ready meal will be less stressful for them. In NZ it would appear that there are fewer people working 13-hour days — so they can hopefully find the time to cook a meal from scratch.”
Air New Zealand signed you up as a consultant to design their in-flight menus. How challenging is it to ensure airline food matches what you were aiming for in creating the original dishes, and what sort of constraints do you have to take into account when designing an airline menu?
“I was probably the first restaurant chef to lend my name to an airline — Air New Zealand were way ahead of the rest of them (a typical NZ attribute). The food I design and what the passenger actually receives are pretty close. The funny thing is that if airlines were able to heat food up in a microwave (usually a chef’s worst nightmare) then airline food could be a little better. As it is, the food is heated in a convection oven, which means the beans will be heating as long as the lamb shank, so the veggies can sometimes come out a little overcooked. I have only once had one of my meals not up to scratch, but that was because we were held on the runway for ages and the ovens had already been turned on. I’ve also had one of the best fish meals ever (seriously) on the LAX-Auckland route. It was a sea bass dish with black bean salsa — absolutely delicious.”
Have you ever rejected a combination of ingredients and flavours as being too over-the-top and, if so, what was the combination you rejected?
“If you mean have I rejected someone else’s combination, then rejected wouldn’t be the right word. I just wouldn’t eat it, put it to the side of the plate. If you mean rejected my own combination, then I’d keep working on it until it was good enough to serve. I have eaten an awful dish in NZ of poached beef with sweet poached kiwifruit, a thick beef stock sauce and peas. It was disgusting — no balance between sweetness, fruitiness and savoury.”
Your restaurant dine in Auckland is sometimes very quiet at lunchtimes, in spite of the fact that the cut-down lunch menu is great value and the restaurant and service are superb. Why are Kiwi eating and drinking habits so eccentric?
“In NZ it’s possible to eat really well in numerous cafés. For many people the thought of heading to dine for lunch doesn’t make sense — they see it as an expensive place to eat, a bit too grand, fussy. The reality is that the express lunch menu is great value, the room may be grander than a café, but it’s not at all stuffy and the service is typical Kiwi style: friendly, attentive and knowledgeable. The view isn’t anywhere as good as on the Viaduct, so in summer I can understand why people would head there. But if you’re after a delicious lunch, in really comfortable surroundings, then dine is your place.”
How do Auckland and Wellington restaurants compare with those in London, and which upcoming New Zealand chefs are creating original, exciting food?
“You might as well ask how do Auckland restaurants compare to those in Wellington. There are similarities and differences everywhere. There are restaurants in NZ that would do brilliantly here in the UK, chefs serving food that would likewise do really well. I’ve had many meals in NZ that are better than many I’ve had here in the UK. I really like Michael Meredith’s food at The Grove in Auckland. I had a brilliant meal at Logan Brown in Wellington a few weeks ago, and some lovely snacks at Bonita on Ponsonby Road. Because my time in NZ tends to be totally work-focused, I don’t get to eat out much at all. I need to experience some of the food back home, and will endeavour to do so!”
Do you ever hanker after just a plain Vegemite sandwich on white bread?
“I’m not a fan of white bread, but I eat a huge amount of toast. It has to have some substance, though, and Vogel’s bread is near the top of my list.”
Do you agree with Gordon Ramsay that woman are no good in the kitchen?
“Ridiculous comment. No doubt it got him plenty of press, though. When I moved to live in Australia in 1981, the top three chefs in Australia were all women. A perfect kitchen in my view is half men and half women. Most women chefs I know find an all-female kitchen too much, and I find an all-male kitchen the same.”
After calling on your expertise, Britain’s Marks and Spencer chain launched a range of ready-made meals. Does it worry you that the ready-made trend in the UK has resulted in fewer people cooking at home, and do you anticipate the same thing happening in NZ?
“Ready-made meals here in the UK are almost a life-saver for some people. The pace of life is too fast and these meals at least provide variety to them. Better a few good ready-mades a week than baked beans and fish and chips every night. The food culture, and home-life culture, here in the UK is so different to NZ.
“In NZ you can pop out to a local café and have fairly good inexpensive food — in the UK that’s a lot harder. In the UK I know people who get in the front door at 8pm, absolutely shagged, so a ready meal will be less stressful for them. In NZ it would appear that there are fewer people working 13-hour days — so they can hopefully find the time to cook a meal from scratch.”
Air New Zealand signed you up as a consultant to design their in-flight menus. How challenging is it to ensure airline food matches what you were aiming for in creating the original dishes, and what sort of constraints do you have to take into account when designing an airline menu?
“I was probably the first restaurant chef to lend my name to an airline — Air New Zealand were way ahead of the rest of them (a typical NZ attribute). The food I design and what the passenger actually receives are pretty close. The funny thing is that if airlines were able to heat food up in a microwave (usually a chef’s worst nightmare) then airline food could be a little better. As it is, the food is heated in a convection oven, which means the beans will be heating as long as the lamb shank, so the veggies can sometimes come out a little overcooked. I have only once had one of my meals not up to scratch, but that was because we were held on the runway for ages and the ovens had already been turned on. I’ve also had one of the best fish meals ever (seriously) on the LAX-Auckland route. It was a sea bass dish with black bean salsa — absolutely delicious.”
Have you ever rejected a combination of ingredients and flavours as being too over-the-top and, if so, what was the combination you rejected?
“If you mean have I rejected someone else’s combination, then rejected wouldn’t be the right word. I just wouldn’t eat it, put it to the side of the plate. If you mean rejected my own combination, then I’d keep working on it until it was good enough to serve. I have eaten an awful dish in NZ of poached beef with sweet poached kiwifruit, a thick beef stock sauce and peas. It was disgusting — no balance between sweetness, fruitiness and savoury.”
Your restaurant dine in Auckland is sometimes very quiet at lunchtimes, in spite of the fact that the cut-down lunch menu is great value and the restaurant and service are superb. Why are Kiwi eating and drinking habits so eccentric?
“In NZ it’s possible to eat really well in numerous cafés. For many people the thought of heading to dine for lunch doesn’t make sense — they see it as an expensive place to eat, a bit too grand, fussy. The reality is that the express lunch menu is great value, the room may be grander than a café, but it’s not at all stuffy and the service is typical Kiwi style: friendly, attentive and knowledgeable. The view isn’t anywhere as good as on the Viaduct, so in summer I can understand why people would head there. But if you’re after a delicious lunch, in really comfortable surroundings, then dine is your place.”
How do Auckland and Wellington restaurants compare with those in London, and which upcoming New Zealand chefs are creating original, exciting food?
“You might as well ask how do Auckland restaurants compare to those in Wellington. There are similarities and differences everywhere. There are restaurants in NZ that would do brilliantly here in the UK, chefs serving food that would likewise do really well. I’ve had many meals in NZ that are better than many I’ve had here in the UK. I really like Michael Meredith’s food at The Grove in Auckland. I had a brilliant meal at Logan Brown in Wellington a few weeks ago, and some lovely snacks at Bonita on Ponsonby Road. Because my time in NZ tends to be totally work-focused, I don’t get to eat out much at all. I need to experience some of the food back home, and will endeavour to do so!”
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