Arts Centre welcomes food truck village
Wednesday, 22 May 2024
Lunch options in the city have become a teensy bit bigger with food trucks moving into the Arts Centre’s grounds, including the Itty-Bitty Bakery.
More than a dozen food carts are gathering at Worcester Blvd throughout the week to serve cuisine from around the world - everything from pizzas and pies to souvlakis and Korean fried chicken.
“It’s a whole little street food vibe,” Arts Centre Food Trucks spokesperson and food cart owner Katie Fiedler said.
Most of the food trucks open at the centre between Wednesday and Sunday, but some are open Monday and Tuesday too.
Fiedler runs Itty-Bitty Bakery food cart with her pie-loving partner, Ben Stafford.
The couple sell small-batch pies made inside their truck, baked fresh and sold hot from the oven.
Despite pies being a “staple food” in New Zealand, Fiedler said they met plenty of tourists having their first pie experience right outside their food cart.
She had watched American tourists getting photos of themselves eating their first pie and saying, “Oh my gosh, there’s lamb in a pie,” she laughed.
They didn’t always stick to traditional pie flavours, with Stafford enjoying getting “really creative”.
He experimented with the menu and “changes it up all the time”, Fiedler said, often getting suggestions from other food truck owners and punters.
The Fancy Pants Steak and Cheese includes tender slow-cooked beef with a bechamel sauce, and a vegetarian option brings together walnut, blue cheese and cauliflower. Chestnut, pumpkin and leek is another recently introduced flavour.
“We just have fun, we live and breath pies.”
Stafford had always been a pie lover, but wanted to take it to the next level and make his own, Fiedler said.
“He figured out on the fly how to make pies with lots of trial and error and reinventing tools to fit the small space.”
The couple moved to Christchurch last year after owning a backpackers in Kaikōura since 2010.
During Covid, Fiedler and Stafford needed a side hustle, so started selling cupcakes at the local market.
They eventually transitioned to a food truck, added pies, and it predominantly became a pie cart.
Now, they’re “full-time on the side-hustle”, Fiedler said.
The food now available at the Arts Centre includes healthy wraps from The Rolling Om, Filipino cuisine from Sangkutsa, Jaeju Korean food, Pom’s Thai Kitchen, Birria Boss, Toasty Shack, Busy Mum’s Kitchen South Indian food, The Saucey Kiwis plant-based cuisine, Puff’d Egyptian desserts, Raclette Team making European street food, and Dimitris serving their famous souvlakis.
The Arts Centre Food Trucks village is at 2 Worcester Blvd, Christchurch.