How Chinese immigrants transformed our dining scene| 2021 - Ep.2

May 28, 2022

Esther Fung

This episode was recorded as part of Visa Wellington On a Plate’s 2021 Food Story Speaker Series and presented by Te Papa.

How home-style cooking brought by Chinese immigrants transformed our dining scene

Haining Street was once the centre of Wellington's Chinese community. It was a place to meet and eat home-style Chinese cooking. Over the years replaced with apartment blocks, it left little trace of what was once Wellington's Chinatown. However, its lasting influence is now dispersed throughout the capital.

Hear from Esther Fung from the Wellington Chinese Association about the cookhouses providing the comfort of home cooking to a mainly bachelor community in Haining Street at the turn of the 20th century, and the influences on our dining scene from the diversity of more recent Chinese immigrants.

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