The Shack named as one of Cuisine’s best dining spots

The Shack features among the New Zealand restaurants selected to showcase in the Cuisine Good Food Guide for 2023/2024, and, on 7 August, 18 category winners and Cuisine’s Hatted restaurants will be announced at the highly anticipated Cuisine Good Food Awards.

The over 250 establishments have been carefully assessed by the 40-strong Cuisine Good Food Guide judging panel comprised of food writers and critics, chefs and hospitality-industry professionals, to ensure that they meet the requirements to make it to the list.

“When choosing our restaurants, we are looking for places that have identified their niche and deliver on their promise to their customers. We award points for mood, décor and service, but our main focus is food: flavour, technique, innovation and balance,” lead judge Kerry Tyack says.

This year, in addition to its prestigious hat allocations and category winners, Cuisine has introduced its ‘Cuisine Destinations’ for 2023/2024.

This new section will allow for a wider focus across regional and metro areas to cater to the diverse taste of Aotearoa that is craved by both Kiwis and international visitors.

“Cuisine Destinations will throw a spotlight on those experiences that you wouldn’t want a visitor to miss: it might be showcasing some of the best kai moana in town; the place for popping the big question over bubbles and snacks; or a spot that makes all of your sourdough pizza dreams come true,” Cuisine editor Kelli Brett says.

A dining establishment endorsed by Cuisine equips serious food and drink lovers with everything they need to venture out for a good time, Brett says. She believes that in recent years restaurant reviews have become the purview of many, meaning that at times they can be uninformed and not always a true or fair reflection of an establishment.

“We put into words – and portray through images – the dining experience, so that the diner can make an informed decision on whether they want to spend their dollars at that establishment.”

She sees the role of Cuisine, and the Cuisine Good Food Guide 2023/2024 as one that supports and uplifts the industry, celebrating the good, the great and the excellent.

“At Cuisine we’d much rather recognise those restaurants that we would happily encourage you to frequent and support.

To receive a review in Cuisine, the restaurant experience needs to be good and the assessment may land somewhere between great and consistently outstanding or extraordinary. We will not waste your time or ours by telling you where not to go. We book anonymously and pay for every meal and, of course, we do often assess restaurants that won’t receive our endorsement. When that happens, we swallow our disappointment, ask for the bill and move on. We are here to lift up and celebrate our hospitality industry, not tear it down.”

In 2023 those restaurants deemed the best of the best will receive 1, 2 or 3 hats and there has been a change in the scoring levels this year. To be awarded one hat a restaurant will need to score 17 with a standard at ‘Excellent’. A score of 18 will remain at two hats (‘Consistently outstanding’) and to achieve three hats a restaurant will need to be considered ‘Extraordinary and approaching perfection’ with a score of 19 or 20.

Last month, Whāingaroa Environment Centre, in collaboration with Xtreme Zero waste, launched our first Repair Cafe. It was a huge success with twenty repair in just two hours! We are truly grateful to our team of dedicated volunteers who shared their awesome skills with our community to keep these items out of landfill, circulating in our economy and saving us bucks in replacing them

XTREME'S ONLINE COURSE: THE ZERO WASTE JOURNEY IS HERE!

We invite you onboard our new Xtreme experience, our online learning course! Learn how to reduce your personal impact on Papatūānuku and reduce your $spend$ too. We've been working hard to create this course and we're stoked to invite you to join us.

JOIN US FOR ROUND TWO!

1-3pm THIS SATURDAY 29 July

Raglan Town Hall Supper Room

The Whāingaroa Repair Café is a free pop-up event where community members can bring in their broken and damaged belongings and local volunteer experts do their best to repair them. We believe in the power of re pairing and reusing goods to create a more circular economy. Repairing rather than buying new is a great way to take climate action in your own life – and learn new skills along the way! By extending the lifespan of these items, we reduce waste and prevent valuable resources from ending up in landfills. We're looking forward to another amazing community event. and we welcome you to bring an array of bro ken items that can be assessed and repaired by these repairers: Visible mending, Textiles, Shoes, Electronics (Tag and Test), General Repairs, Bikes. Do you want to join the Repair Café and lend your skills as a fixer? We'd love to hear from you! Email: repaircafe@whaingaroa.org.nz https://xtremezerowaste.org.nz/zero-waste-journey/

Over 6 weeks we will guide you through the various steps of the Waste Hierarchy. We start with helping you through a Whanau Waste Check at home, then the team share Xtreme's top tips and recommendations, guiding you through all the steps on the journey towards less waste & saving $$.

THIS IS A FREE COURSE thanks to the support from:

Sign up to receive:

6 x weekly videos from the Xtreme Team

Downloadable worksheets & resources

Quizzes to play

A treat from us when you finish.

Big thanks to Dave Duffin for the video creation and Tom & Simone of Webpaste for making all the tech happen.

Come along if you want to know more about growing kūmara or potatoes or if you have experience to share. Liz Stanway will share her kūmara growing tips and Geoff Powell will cover growing and chitting tips for potatoes. We'll be finding and clearing slug and snail habitats, compost building, mulching. Everyone is invited to bring some food to share. There will be some winter warming food including root vegetable dishes and recipes. You are welcome to bring your favourite too. Bring gardening clothes and tools. Your questions and knowledge. If it is raining we will retreat to the community house basement and enjoy our time there. This is a free event. All welcome!