Cafes and Restaurants
Luciano’s, Queenstown
Luciano’s can be described quite simply, great meat cooked brilliantly. If you take away the mobster theme; the walls covered in quotes from gangster films, the Tommy gun mounted on the wall near the entrance, and the blues brother’s car that drives around town; then the food can stand on it’s own. I believe Luciano’s is the best restaurant in Queenstown – the food isn’t quite as refined as a couple of other places, however the price is great and the vibe is familiar.
As the menu suggests (see picture) the produce is all sourced as locally as possible and is as fresh as possible. The menu is italian, pizza, pasta, and meat. I haven’t even considered the pizza or pasta – the “3 hour slow roasted 90 day aged Hereford rib-eye baked gratin, seasonal veg, whole garlic & pinot jus” or “Wild fiordland venison, bacon arancini, Sicilian caponata & cherry balsamic” are far too tempting. To make matters even better, the prices are great – any one of these mains for $30 would be a steal but the entire menu is downright outrageous. Couple this with the fact that the portions are quite large and not only do you have brilliant food, it is at great value.
The food isn’t thae only thing going for it, the service is great; friendly, prompt and courteous and the wine list is well considered, a good range of prices and varieties but nothing over the top or pretentious.
What more can I say? Luciano’s probably isn’t going to feature on the list of New Zealand’s best restaurants but it damn well should. It encapsulates everything that the south holds dear – great food, good produce and a warm friendly atmosphere.
The duck and goose liver pate. I’m not normally a fan of pate however this was sweet and rich but not the flavour wasn’t too overpowering.
Slow cooked rabbit and hare ragu with brioche and chutney. I’m a sucker for ragu and this didn’t fail to impress. The gamey meats are perfectly suited for slow cooking – it falls apart perfectly but still maintains a great texture in your mouth. Served with brioche and chutney what more can I say?
Half a duck w baked kumara & leek, green beans, toasted almonds & caramelised orange sauce. I only tasted a little bit of the duck and the meat was beautiful but the skin was a touch too fatty. As far as I’m concerned this was the only blemish and perhaps hard to avoid.
The main attraction. Wild fiordland venison, bacon arancini, Sicilian caponata & cherry balsamic. If I didn’t like all the other food so much, I’d say this was my favourite dish. There’s something about venison that makes me wish for a baby’s bib so I don’t have to hold the drool in my mouth. This was no exception. The sweetness of the balsamic reduction cut through the weight of this dish brilliantly.
Rhubarb crumble with berry sorbet. Warm, comforting rhubarb. Sweet, acidic sorbet. Almond meal crumble. A well-balanced almost savoury dessert.
You should follow me on Twitter.Adventures in Queenstown
Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time in Queenstown. I lived there for about 18 months and have been for a couple of holidays before and since. Needless to say, I love the place; it has a unique combination of good food, great bars, plenty of things to do and see and a truly amazing surrounds and that is without mentioning the wine. Having just spent the better part of 8 weeks in Queenstown juggling eating, drinking, snowboarding and working I’m happy to be home yet sad to leave – it has been a great 2 months.
I don’t think I could say that over the 2 months we’ve eaten at every good restaurant in the resort – but we’ve damn well tried and I think the only restaurant on our list that we didn’t get to was closed for a private booking on our final night in town. There has been lots of meals, plenty of wine, a few photos and about 67 hamburgers to write about so it might span a few posts.
A few of the highlights from this trip have been:
- Northburn Station: Spending the afternoon talking to Tom and Jan about the young winery and function centre that is Northburn Station.
- Botswana Butchery: I’m a sucker for massive pieces of roasted meat so the slow-cooked lamb shoulder took me hook line and sinker.
- Eichardt’s Private Hotel – Far and away my favourite place in Queenstown, the cocktails are always great and the whole place makes you feel like a king.
- Motogrill – Being treated like a regular after not having been there for 18 months.
Fergburger has a new menu
I’m not entirely sure if I made it entirely clear the other day, but I’m in Queenstown for 7 weeks and you can bet your bottom dollar I’m going to be eating a fair few hamburgers. There’s a longer, more gushing blogpost about everything Fergburger coming soon, but in the meantime there is a few new items on the menu.
I’m not sure the last time they changed the menu here, but I don’t think it has changed in the last 3 years. So for what could be the most famous hamburger joint in the southern hemisphere, if not the world, this is big news.
There are 3 additions to the menu.
The Bulls Eye – $18.50
Prime New Zealand Ribeye steak (200g), Grilled medium, topped with rings of white onion, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, aioli and tomato relish.
Chief Wiggum – $14.50
Slow roasted pork belly, lettuce, tomato, red onions, hash brown with aioli, and a delicious spread of apricot seeded mustard.
Double Ferg with Cheese
Same as the old, twice the meat. With Edam ($10.50), Swiss or Blue ($11.50).
On Being a Regular
There is nothing better than being a regular at your favourite bar or coffee shop. It’s like the Cheers song, you keep going back because everyone knows your name and they are glad you came. It’s as though even the coffee tastes better when it’s served by a barista that knows your order or a barman that knows you like heaps of ice in your drink.
It’s probably been about 18 months since last I had a coffee at Motogrill. I wouldn’t have ever considered myself a regular there but after a few minutes of sitting at the counter one of the owners turns around and asks, “You guys haven’t been in here for a while, have you?” She even remembered the running joke I had with one of the baristas about how they needed to serve beer. Turns out, now they do.
Not much else has changed, the menu is still about 8 different dishes, written on a blackboard above the stove. The cafe itself is bigger, but the furniture is still the same and I think I spotted a NZ Snowboarder magazine that I read 2 years ago sitting on the same table.
It is so easy to get caught up in the launch of a new cafe, the latest coffee brewing method or a new menu at a cool cafe. But it is little things like the barista knowing your order and the waitress knowing your name that actually mean something.
You should follow me on Twitter.Gone camping
Posting may be a little slow over the next few weeks as we are in Queenstown snowboarding. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of eating and drinking.
Here’s a photo…
You should follow me on Twitter.Freestyle Espresso opening in South Melbourne
It seems a new cafe, “Freestyle Espresso” is opening on Union St in South Melbourne. It is in the old Peter Watson shop and with a new sign and a few fliers in the window describing “Food, glorious food, coffee… Yeh… Really good coffee, gourmet pastries + delights takeaway deliciousness, sweet things + surrrrrprises to come”
Looks good, I’m excited to see somewhere new opening in what is already a crowded space. It will also be interesting to see who supplies the coffee. Most of the 3rd Wave roasters are represented in a 2 block radius of this place. I’m betting on Coffee Supreme.
Miss Jackson, St Kilda
Every time I’m on my way to Miss Jackson all I can think about is that song, “I’m sorry Miss Jackson, I am for real” it’s really annoying because I should be thinking how Miss Jackson is going to help me from my hangover, you know, for real. After watching the film clip, now I’m going to expect someone to be washing their pimped out car out the front and dogs nodding their heads at me as I walk up Gray St. All of this and no hallucinogens.
Wedged down an alley between halfway houses, backpacker travel agents and a few seedy nightclubs, Miss Jackson is a shining beacon of class in an otherwise classless (apologies to the Melbourne Wine Room, none such to the ever-so-trashy George lane-way bar) area. The café itself is a converted house that reminds me more of a rabbit warren than a café, the smaller nooks don’t quite fit the tables that they contain. It’s nowhere near as cramped as Wall 280 in Balaclava and there it adds “character”. Nonetheless the place has character and the larger communal tables are comfortable and spacious. There’s also an outdoor area, which thankfully parents seem to utilise to entertain their wild children.
T
he menu is everything you would expect without being outstanding. Corn fritters, steak sandwiches, and eggs every which way. But what the menu lacks in excitement it makes up with in the execution. While you might cook everything on the menu at home, it simply won’t be as good.
The portions are great, the food looks amazing and best of all it tastes spot on. In fact, of all the cafés around, Miss Jackson is my favourite for a comforting, hangover curing breakfast – morning or afternoon. Perhaps this is cause of a subtle focus on booze. There is beer and wine on the menu and a few bottles of spirits peeking out from behind the bar – important for my personal favourite menu item.
The “superstar DJ” bloody mary is everything you could want in this breakfast cocktail – good spice and acidity and a healthy sprig of celery. A bloody mary is tricky to get right at the best of times and they come out with amazing consistency.
The guys that run this place (Steve and Matt) are clearly drinkers – it shows – they know what’s good for you.
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