I can die happy after Amisfield’s epic five-hour 30-course dinner

Sunday, 27 July 2025

Amisfield’s greenbone cone, served with three greenbone heads.

At 10.18pm on a Thursday, I dropped into our team Slack channel with a plea for assistance.

“I’ve been at Amisfield for three hours and I’m still only halfway through a 30-course dinner. Send help.”

Truth be told, it was less of a plea and more an excuse to share pictures of the incredible courses that had been enjoyed so far - the kind of jaw-dropping cuisine that conjures visions of Salvador Dali.

Head chef Vaughan Mabee prepares to serve a selection of salamis and cured meats in Amisfield's private charcuterie lounge.

In fact, says chef Vaughan Mabee, speaking to the Sunday Star-Times ahead of this marathon undertaking, it’s best not to think of them as courses at all: instead, consider them “impressions” - “tiny little things” that make you think. Menu items include “rocks”; “the far north”; “huhu grub”; and “a goat’s tale”.

“I don’t really try and mess around with things too much in the sense that when I cook, I try to not put too many ingredients together,” says Mabee, explaining his philosophy towards food.

“I try to really promote one flavour, because it’s so special on its own. You don’t want to have a piece of blue cod and then put cajun spice on top of it, f…ing caper mayonnaise, and all this other weird shit. You wanna take its purity and its beauty, cook that in its simplest form, and … create something where people can have that piece of fish and say it’s the best f…ing fish I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

Vaughan Mabee’s 'southern swede' dish is a silky recreation of his childhood memories of farm-pulled swedes, served with shaved black truffles.

A waiter retrieves an entree course with a pair of tweezers.

Flavours aside, there’s plenty of other “weird shit” during dinner at Amisfield, in the best possible way - food that messes with expectations, challenging diners to reconsider their attitudes towards food. From the beginning, it’s clear the experience will be as much theatre performance as meal; an elaborate production spanning five hours; 30 courses with paired wines; nine chefs; and surprise after surprise.

The first table setting is more of a jungle; a pile of leaves and shrubbery nestled around a block of wood on which the first few courses are served. Those courses, by the way, had been on the table the whole time - disguised as decorations on gaunt sticks, and artfully retrieved by a waiter with tweezers.

The wild boar mortadella is served on bread and warmed with flame.

Wild boar mortadella sliced for serving (and snacking).

Vaughan Mabee's wild boar mortadella, modelled on an actual boar snout, wart included.

Wild venison is served under the stars, cooked on an open fire by a private chef.

The tītī muttonbird wicked wing, a la Colonel Sanders.

The eel on vogels, served with an eel skeleton.

The sheep's horn dessert, where ice cream is crafted to look like part of a sheep's skull.

The duck-beak dessert, of which head chef Vaughan Mabee is particularly proud.

Amisfield’s mallard palmate - a deboned, dehydrated, puffed and fried duck's foot, served with claws of truffle.

These delicately-patterned cocktail pāua are still alive when they arrive at the table.

Amisfield’s 'rocks' dish, where bread and butter are crafted to look like stones. Head chef Vaughan Mabee demonstrates how one stone is actually a serving of butter.

Head chef Vaughan Mabee shows his pāua salami in the private charcuterie lounge at Amisfield.

Space does not permit describing all 30 dishes, so we’ll skip through with some summarising: the initial six courses are vegetable-themed, including Amisfield’s iconic pumpkin flowers and ‘southern swede’, a silky recreation of Mabee’s childhood memories of farm-pulled swedes.

Then, a summons: I’m called away from the table through the restaurant and up a dark set of stairs, through two sets of sliding doors, and into… what else… a private charcuterie lounge, where Mabee himself is waiting. He’s in his element here waving knives around in his chef whites and pouring a generous Cardrona single malt whisky (yes, this is on top of the 30-course paired wines).

Mabee serves delicate slivers of pāua salami; the first cuts of a leg of wild boar that’s been curing since 2018; his famous wild boar mortadella, modelled on an actual boar snout, wart included; and the aforementioned “rocks” - bread and butter served on a tray of stones, and in the name of art it’s impossible to tell the difference between them, leaving Mabee tapping various rocks to see which ones might be edible.

On the side, among other things, there’s pickled strawberries and fern fronds, and everything melts in my mouth. This is hands-down the best charcuterie of my life; I go back for another slice of mortadella, and Mabee cautions: “Steady on, there’s still a lot more food to come.”

Back at my table in the main restaurant, the pāua dish is literally creeping towards me - delicately-patterned cocktail shellfish that are still very much alive, and much too small to be legal wild catch, but available farmed from Bluff’s Foveaux Pāua. I’m bracing for the sensation of a live mollusc on my tongue, but to my relief, it emerges one has been pre-dispatched for serving in a delicate creamy foam.

This is classic Amisfield: taking diners to the edge of comfort, forcing a reckoning with where food comes from.

“It’s quite shocking for people,” says Mabee, who explains the shock itself isn’t the point. “It’s just my own weird interpretation of what’s beautiful. It’s kind of a little bit of a gauntlet … this beautiful thing that was here, has died for you to eat, so I want you to appreciate it in a different way.”

It’s about this point that I’m appealing to my team for help, before we’re off for another round of courses. There’s the tītī muttonbird wicked wing, a la Colonel Sanders; the wild hare; and a venison course served under the stars, cooked on an open fire by another private chef.

Dessert is another wild adventure: the huhu grub that turns out to be a sweet treat; a duck beak, of which Mabee is particularly proud; a confronting sheep’s skull where it turns out one of the horns is ice cream.

It’s impossible to pick out one dish as a favourite; this is one of those meals that has to be considered in its entirety.

“I consider the whole menu one dish,” says Mabee. “It has a journey of up and down, down and up, that’s complete in the end.”

Complete, yes, and I’m completely stuffed - not to mention slightly sozzled after all those paired wines, as Mabee finally sits down at the table after midnight, cracking a cold beer, to ask how I’ve enjoyed the experience.

Words are hard to come by, and not just because of the booze.

“After a dinner like that, I can die a happy man.”

For more on Amisfield and chef Vaughan Mabee, click here to read today’s Sunday magazine cover story.

Amisfield recently became the first New Zealand venue to be recognised in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 51-100 list, placing 99th. The Chef’s Menu is $695 per person, with an additional $600 per person for wine pairings. For bookings and more information visit amisfield.co.nz.