The top of the top of fine dining

Dining in Christchurch can be difficult because we’re spoilt for choice.  You will see  that as well as kiwi-food, we also love the ethnic foods of our new- New Zealanders.

Evidence of how spoilt we are, and the high standards of the chefs,  is that four local restaurants are finalists in the celebrated Cuisine NZ restaurant of the Year Awards 2010. These are Restaurant Schwass;  Saggio di Vino;  Pescatore,  and in Amberley, just north of the city, Pegasus Bay Winery.

However, we have many other wonderful places for a fabulous dining experience and I’d like to introduce you to some that my friends have as their top choices.

Quite an entrance!

Leading the list of what’s hot right now is Simos, New Zealand’s first authentic Moroccan Restaurant  with all the evocative flavours of an ancient world – herbs and spices, oils, syrups, honeyed fruits, nuts, and of course the saltiness of preserved lemons and olives. The chef is Simo Abbari who was born in Morocco and who is trained in classical French cuisine and Christchurch diners are in love with his aromatic pastillas, briouats, tagines and couscous. Simo has been in Chrischurch for about 18 years, and was once a chef  in this same hotel before opening his own place here.

The unusually named Cook’n with Gas is a multi-award winning restaurant that has been serving modern New Zealand cuisine in an informal setting for about 10 years. Set in an historic villa it’s usually fully booked most nights and as it’s in the middle of the Cultural Precinct it’s handy to many hotels and of course the Court Theatre. For locals it’s perfect for entertaining visitors or special clients. Just like an Italian restaurant in New York that I loved, this restaurant has paper on the tables and wonderful cuisine on the plate, and to accompany it, top New Zealand (and other) wines

And also for the first time in New Zealand, while not fine dinning in the usual manner is Nobano - a traditional Bengali cuisine with a modern twist!  Bangladeshi cuisine uses a range of fresh herbs and aromatic spices to create a unique blend of flavours.  They say they “have taken the best of these traditional dishes, and added our special ingredients to give you a truly new taste experience – one that is fresh and healthy as well as full of flavour.” I have loved every meal I have had there.

For Burmese food you could not beat The Bodhi Tree for vegetarian and fish dishes and I know many Cantabrians who would go nowhere else and will just accept whatever time is available for a booking.

And for Thai food there are another group of my friends who would not consider anywhere but Ironside Thai while The Curators House prides itself on serving local products – often with Spanish twist

Yamagen - Japanese restaurant

Yamagen Japanese Restaurant at the Crowne Plaza was voted New Zealand’s best Japanese restaurant in 2007, Yamagen offers the best of Japanese dining prepared using the finest New Zealand produce and presented either traditionally or with the flair and dramatic appeal of teppan-yaki cooking.

A beautiful antique couch awaits you in the foyer