I was at The Abbey less than a month ago and debated ordering their entry – Rudolph the Russian Red Beer – more’s the pity I didn’t.
Close to 6500 diners visited competing restaurants during June and July, voting on the competition dishes. The public’s favourite entrants were also assessed by Monteith’s convenor of judges, Kerry Tyack, who had the job of whittling down the 15 leading contenders to six finalists. He was joined at the cook-off by panel of restaurant critics.
The Abbey’s winning dish, inspired by Chef Eugene Sokolovski’s Russian heritage, was a lavender crusted venison rack with a taro and green banana filled apple, red currants, goat’s cheese and golden kumara soufflé with maple-poached Jerusalem artichokes. This was matched with Monteith’s Celtic. Local diners who might have missed sampling this ingenious creation, will be pleased that The Abbey will continue to offer ‘Rudolf the Russian Red Beer’ on its menu for another month.
The other five finalists in the competition were Loading Ramp, Havelock North; Mount Bistro, Tauranga; St John’s Restaurant, Wellington, The Porch Kitchen & Bar, Waihi Beach and Wineglass Café, Wanaka.
Around 120 nationwide restaurants entered this year’s competition designed to find the perfect wild food and Monteith’s beer match. Howick’s Basalt was in the running when it made the top 15 but didn’t quite get there for the fiercely contested top six spots – better luck next year!
