Celebrate with Dine Wellington
July 22, 2019
It’s just over a week until Visa Wellington On a Plate is go!! And we’re starting the festival with a bang launching straight into Dine Wellington with over 120 Festival Dishes to Feast your Senses from 1-16 August all across the Wellington region. It’s the perfect way to get out and sample the best our restaurants, cafes and bars have to offer, and taste the goodness of fresh, local produce and ingredients.
If you’ve always wanted to try a particular restaurant or cafe, or were just looking for an excuse to get back to your old faves, there’s a Dine dish for everyone no matter your dietary persuasion. Here’s some of our picks of 2019’s Dine Wellington Festival dishes:
Vegetarian - For those who like their three veg minus the meat
Tinakori Bistro - Kingsmead Tinui blue and Sunset blue cheese souffle with Kaitoke blueberry sorbet.
Hillside - Cameron Family Farms carrots. Hillside gets clever with carrots in a multitude of culinary formats.
The Botanist - Vegan lamb rack with purple creamed potato, aubergine crisps, Kāpiti-grown carrot puree, rosemary popcorn, jus and chocolate mint.
Husk (pictured above) - Black meringue made with Capital free-range eggs and Ōtaki carrots five ways - carrot purée, carrot ginger sponge, carrot cremeux, pickled carrot and carrot beurre noisette powder.
Scopa - Pumpkin and Zany Zeus ricotta, handmade gnocchi with a brown butter and apple dressing, crispy sage, hazelnuts and rocket.
Hummingbird - Salt-baked beetroot with Parkvale mushroom duxelle, thyme and smoked mushroom jus.
Seafood - Fresh, briny kaimoana from our local shores
Noble Rot - Clams, salmon, mussels, candied beetroot, pickled cucumber, Awatoru bull kelp, salmon roe, seaweed, shiso, potato miso espuma.
Restaurant 88 - Stuffed whole crab with rice noodles in a classic tamarind sauce seasoned with homegrown rice paddy herbs.
Waterfront Bar - Tuna carpaccio with Ōtaki bush ‘wasabi’, smoked Levin Eel Trading Company eel mousse, with fennel and chilli slaw, grilled tarakihi with blackberry pesto
Coco at the Roxy - Pāua sausage, gingered carrot, radish, soy and citrus from our friends at the Miramar Fruit Shop.
Monsoon Poon - Poached Cook Strait crayfish and prawns on Thai black rice ‘risotto’, with galangal and curry leaf bisque, shiitake mushrooms, green peas and lemongrass foam.
Pork - This little piggy said go to Dine
Shepherd - Longbush pork face hotdog, crispy pig ear salad, trotter doughnuts with apple jam, pork floss, candied fermented walnuts.
Mr Go’s - Sizzling Hot Plate: Woody’s free-range pork, Supreme Coffee and paprika marinade, market greens and a citrus jelly, served on a sizzling hot plate.
Jardin Grill - Rotisserie black pepper Longbush pork belly, smoked tamarillo, almond and Mela sweet apple cider vinegar.
Lamb - A winter comfort dish for the carnivore
Union Square - Smoked Wairarapa lamb backstrap, cassolette of white beans, lamb croquet, and confit garlic.
La Bella Italia - Char-grilled Grass Fed Girls lamb cutlets with salsa verde and Lot Eight Harissa olive oil.
Laundry (pictured above) - Pirinoa Lamb shank and chilli stew, blistered tomato espuma, dehydrated picco de gallo, hand made tortilla, blackened Kāpiti lime and candy citrus zest, with Our Terrior microgreens.
Beef - Find out what’s the beef with Dine Wellington
Soprano Petone - Wagyu beef, coffee and chocolate beef jus, mushroom chips, Zany Zeus smoked ricotta and rocket agnolotti, olive oil foam, parmesan crisp, micro greens, and truffle mist.
Olive - Salt and foraged herb crusted beef shin, paprika potatoes, wilted spinach, bone marrow jus.
Nikau - 1.2kg Asado scotch fillet and its short ribs with confit cabbage and our rooftop garden parsley and garlic sauce.
Chicken - Count your Dine chicken dishes before they hatch
Pravda - Chicken liver mousse with port wine and tamarillo gel, smoked Zany Zeus yoghurt and charcoal lavosh.
Comes and Goes (pictured above) - Sous-vide free range chicken breast, mixed grain risotto, Prana Greens microgreens and yuzu puree.
Eva Beva - Panfried chicken with The Drunken Nanny Goats Cheese on a bed of buckwheat quinoa pilaf cress salad, served with gluten free garlic crisps and topped with wavering bonito flakes.
Game - Love the game and the player with these gamey meats dished up for Dine Wellington
One Fat Bird - Deconstructed duck pie with a confit duck leg encased in Aro Bake brioche accompanied with root vegetable hash, smokey demi jus, duck liver parfait beurre noisette and popping candy sprinkles.
Longbeach - Awatoru wild venison, Longbeach celeriac, sorrel oil, venison shin croquette, wild mushroom sauce and ocean fog.
The Hudson - Tararua Forest Park wild caught, in-house dry-aged fallow, locally foraged blackberries, mushroom, wild pea, mustard leaf and nasturtium.
The Portlander - Harrington’s black pudding, Kawakawa and miso braised beef cheek, black carrots and onion, Parkvale mushroom mousse and gills, black garlic, Jerez vinegar gel.
Sweet - Who said your Dine dish can’t be dessert?
Ortega - Grenada Bay cherry rum baba, spiced cherries, cultured Zany Zeus and Whittakers Dark Ghana chip ice cream.
Seize - Hazelnut butter and raspberry jam tart, coconut hazelnut mousse with Wellington Chocolate Factory dark chocolate, chocolate banana peanut ice cream.
Soujourn - Cherry Zany Zeus mascarpone mousse cake, praline crunch and Zelati berry sorbet.
Field & Green - Cassola - baked Zany Zeus ricotta and orange zest soufflé served with marmalade and chocolate sauce.
Highwater - Feijoa, Haewai Mead, Pohutukawa honey, Drunken Nanny goat cheese and bay caramel.
Grace Pattiserie (pictured above) - Whittaker’s white chocolate coconut mousse, passionfruit curd, mango banana mint coulis served with Zany Zeus lemon creme fraiche, hazelnut dacquoise and kataifi.
Experience - looking for a little drama, entertainment and interactive dining? Try these dining experiences that
Hippopotamus - The night unfolds under the cover of darkness in Le Salon, Hippopotamus’ private dining room. With the lights down low, you'll find their Dine dish - crayfish and catch of the day with wild harvest wakame, sea chicory and Lot Eight Sweet Aromatic olive oil - nestled amongst their fixed menu of seven courses, five of which, designed to heighten one of your senses: sight, sound, scent, touch and taste. (Or you can enjoy the Dine dish all on its own with the lights on!)
Forage Kitchen + Bar - Forage Kitchen & Bar lives up to its name when you embark on a little mini forage in the restaurant’s gorgeous little indoor garden for your own selection of herbs and mushrooms for a Dine dish of Black Angus beef fillet with potato gratin, bone marrow, smoked herb-butter and oyster mushrooms.
There are more than a hundred Dine Wellington Festival Dishes out there to try across the Wellington region - have a look and see what catches your fancy on www.vwoap.com and don’t forget to Rate your favourite dish. You’ll help determine the top five finalists plus you could be in to win a trip to Copenhagen with thanks to Singapore Airlines.
Dine Wellington is proudly supported by San Pellegrino, the perfect pairing to our amazing Dine Wellington dishes. San Pellegrino sparkling mineral water is used in some of the best restaurants around the world and loved by world-renowned chefs, sommeliers, gourmets and foodies. This year San Pellegrino celebrates 120 years.
