Eggs bene hāngī: The Wellington cafe putting a modern twist on marae classics

Sunday, 17 September 2023

Dining at Karaka Cafe, says Keri Retimanu, should feel like being back at the marae.

“We definitely evoke experiences for Māori that come in here, where they talk about being on a marae and eating this type of food, or making this type of food themselves on the marae,” says Retimanu, who co-owns the Wellington waterfront eatery with husband Paul.

Karaka Cafe’s bilingual menu is proudly and unapologetically focused on Māori and Pasifika cuisine, including a “mean Māori mean” section and the popular Pacific Plate with chop suey, taro, spinach potato salad, palusami with corned beef crumb and slow-cooked pork belly.

“If someone comes in and asks for steak with mushrooms, no, that’s not our thing,” says Retimanu, adding that the cafe still has broad appeal.

“We have lots of mainstream people come through, and tourists as well. When the cruise ships are here we’re quite busy, and they have a go at speaking the Māori words, which is pretty exciting for us.”

Karaka Cafe is renowned for its hāngī offerings; popular dishes include eggs bene on a hāngī hash, and Retimanu says tastes are centred around “signature Māori dishes”. They used to have a hāngī pit on site - “not a good place to put a hāngī pit, next to the water!” - but hāngī are now prepared in commercial steam ovens instead.

“We’ve always had the hāngī, whether it’s from the ground or now ovens, so that’s the ethos around the taste …Hāngī these days are few and far between, but we’re definitely known for hāngī.”

During Matariki, Karaka sent out thousands of takeaway containers for central-city corporates: “We are known for that,” says Retimanu, “and we do evoke a Māori experience about what it is to taste a hāngī.”

The key to a good hāngī, she adds, is “the smoky flavours, and the steam”.

“It shouldn’t really look like a roast, and of course the stuffing for hāngī is key! We have commercial ovens that are literally steamers - we used to have a smoking oven, but we sell too many hāngī, so now we use herbs, flavours, smoking liquid, things like that, to enhance the flavours. The meats are generally cooked overnight to give it that slow-cooked deeper taste as well.”

Karaka Cafe is part of Te Raukura, the waterfront wharewaka complex opened in 2011 to acknowledge the past and mark Wellington’s future commitment to Taranaki Whānui. About halfway through construction, the Retimanus, who had a decades-long catering relationship with the iwi, were asked if they’d like to come onboard to run a cafe and function centre.

“The Karaka Cafe side of it was named by a kaumatua, Sam Jackson, who unfortunately has passed away, but he called it the Karaka Cafe because of the karaka grove that’s just outside here on the harbour,” says Retimanu.

“The lagoon actually used to end at the rowing club, but it was dredged along here to make the slipways for the waka house, and then the karaka trees were planted, so that’s where the name Karaka comes from. A reference to orange, which people more commonly know as the colour, but it’s actually referring to the karaka trees and berries.”

The “Karaka experience” runs through the cafe, encompassing “the look, the sound, and the taste”.

“The look is really contemporary,” says Retimanu. “It’s the koru designs, you immediately see Māori words on the menus because they’re bilingual. The sound for us is around the music that we have, so it’s either in Māori, or by Māori, and we have extended that now to indigenous or Pasifika artists … And taste is around our signature Māori dishes.”

Covid forced a change in how the cafe operated, which Retimanu says ended up being for the best.

“We used to be seven days a week, 364 days a year … but Covid, for us, was just a real awakening. As scary as it was for the business, I loved having four weeks off!

“So we now no longer open on public holidays. We don’t open the cafe on Sundays, which is a big call, especially in Wellington in summer, but it’s made such a difference for us, because we are now busier than we were pre-Covid, but it doesn’t feel crazy silly any more.”

Retimanu is particularly proud of how long their staff stick around, and says those who move on to other things are always welcome to return.

“We always say ‘once whānau, always whānau’.”