Jesse Mulligan: What Europe’s Food Scene Taught Me About New Zealand Restaurants
On holiday in Europe in a heatwave, Jesse has some ideas and accolades for Kiwi hospo.
I write to you from the south of France, where the sun has finally set on the second European heatwave of 2026. I was on holiday here with my family for all 11 days of it. It was, as the cliche goes, like being in a sauna. Except, you know that feeling 10 minutes into a sauna where you’re like, “okay, I’ve got it now, let’s go do something else”. There was no something else. The sauna lasted almost a fortnight.
It affected my appetite. Two euros in Turin buys you a stuffed bag of prosciutto but I could barely summon the will to eat it. Meanwhile people from home kept live-texting me from the Michelin Awards announcement. Already delirious from the heat, I had to try to get my head around some deeply unfamiliar concepts. What is a “Bib Gourmand”? What is an “Essence”?
But, of course, I have found time to eat out and take notes. Here’s what I’ve noticed so far.
Everybody is grumpy
Deeply, deeply grumpy. Smiling at them doesn’t help. Talking to them in their own language doesn’t help. Being the only customers in their restaurant doesn’t help. With only a few exceptions, service staff here cannot be charmed. Next time somebody bangs on at you about European career waiters and how much better they are than part-timer Kiwi students, you can tell them they’re wrong. It’s Student Job Search for the win.
We could make more of open spaces
Look, I know outdoor eating only works six weeks of the year in Auckland, but could we try to extend the season? Cibo manages a mostly outdoor restaurant 7/52/365, while Bracu in Bombay does a great job of making you feel like you’re eating among the olive trees year-round. I wonder if there might be an opportunity for more Auckland restaurants on or near farms? You get the view, the parking and the fresh air free as part of the package. At one restaurant lunch in Italy last week, a ripe fig fell from the tree above us, bounced and landed in my son’s empty water glass. Moments like that can’t be engineered, but it sure does make you feel closer to the stuff you’re eating.
Bread sticks are a thing
In northern Italy they come not just with every meal, but with every drink. I will be completely honest with you and tell you that they don’t do anything for me (dry, unflavoured, undersalted) but my wife couldn’t stop gobbling them up. When she finished them, the waiter brought more. What’s the moral? You can offer something that costs just a few cents and if it’s free, you’ll seem like you’re being exceptionally generous.
Could we do French-style set menus in New Zealand?
There’s a strange sort of restaurant arithmetic in France, where you can order an entree, main and dessert from the menu for €40 ($80), or order a three-course “Prix Fixe” for €25. Why? And how? I understand there are some advantages for the restaurant (make the most of a seasonal glut, save labour costs on making the same thing over and over, trick customers into staying longer so they order more drinks where the real profit margin lies) but the financial advantages for the customer are undeniable too. It’s a peculiar sort of deal where the customer and the restaurant end up in a better position than if it didn’t exist. Like First Table, without the self-loathing.
We are so good at this
“It is rare to award such a quantity of stars in a country’s inaugural launch, New Zealand’s performance has been genuinely impressive,” the Michelin guide director Gwendal Poullennec was quoted in a recent press release. But he’s right about the impressive part. The Europe I’ve seen so far offers beautiful food in stunning environments, but the menus seem to be restricted by an invisible set of guardrails that say you can innovate, but only so far.
Aotearoa has something of a food identity crisis (ask three chefs what NZ food is and you’ll get three different answers) but with that lack of expectation comes a genuine freedom to do anything. You won’t eat a better bread dumpling than the one they serve you simmered in broth in a Dolomite mountain refugio. But they’ve been doing it for 200 years, and will do it for 200 more. This sort of tradition is the reason I’m holidaying here, but it’s also the reason I’ll very happily come home to real life when my month-long vacation in the Old World is up.
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