Wellington – Hillside Kitchen
We had been wanting to go out for a special meal in Wellington, and a vegetarian tasting menu sounded like just the thing! Enter Hillside Kitchen – a meatless/vegetarian/plant-focused dining experience.
Their menu is based on what’s in season, what they are growing in their garden or what they have foraged or canned.
This was our menu…
As we looked over the menu, we started with a non-alcoholic apperitif.
A pea pod and mint spritzer with pea pod cordial, lemon juice sparkling water and mint leaves.
It was a refreshing and lovely start to the meal.
As each course was presented to us, it was described in precise detail by the server. Often they would point to jars of canned or pickled vegetables lining the walls or boughs of garlic to demonstrate the source. I did my best to type down everything they were saying, but I’m sure I missed a few things!
Snacks to Start
There were two of us dining so the plate had one of each of the following (clockwise from the top) for each of us
- Carrot with Wild Garlic Puree
- Leftover sourdough bread made into a tart shell with carrot puree and fried kumara
- Pickled Courgette
- Sourdough Starter Cracker with Courgette Puree
- Pickled Radish
Sourdough
Next came the sourdough made from starter that Asher (the Owner and Head Chef) has been nurturing for 18 years. It was made with wild yeast from his Mom’s garden.
We were served 1 slice each of traditional sourdough and “compost” sourdough.
The “compost” sourdough was made with pumpkin skin miso and pumpkin seeds. It had an earthy marmite taste.
Garlic Soup
Next is a wild garlic soup with tomatoes, pickled cucumber, olives, and grapes
We had a tomato leaf and herb kombucha for our paired drink.
This was my favorite pairing.
Courgette, Basil & Onion
Courgettes with basil atop a wild onion puree topped with leftover sourdough croutons and a sourdough bread sauce
Our drink pairing for this course was a blueberry shrub with smoked lapsong oolong. Oddly enough, we both thought it tasted like BBQ sauce.
Nightshades
Next up we had baby potatoes, potato crisps, and red cabbage kraut, on a bed of five nightshades, including two types of chili peppers and tomatillos.
This was served with a Sima made from lemons fermented for five days and sweetened with a bit of kawakawa cola.
Pumpkin, Greens
Our final main course was a pumpkin dumpling covering a bed of bok choy that was drizzled with koji sauce
This course was paired with a beetroot and bay leaf drink. The beetroot was ferment for 5 days, spices were added along with a bay leaf hydrosol.
Cheese
On to the cheese course. Remember the butter in the sourdough course? The butter milk that is separated from the butter fat when making butter was used to make the cheese course. Apricot from the garden and honey from their bees topped the buttermilk cheese, along with pine nuts and a sumac crisp. Manchego cheese from a local supplier was grated on top.
The cheese course was paired with a “wine” made from the plum flesh and stone. Smoked corn husk and cacao were added for a depth of flavor.
Palate Cleanser
Cucumber, apple, and mint sorbet
Strawberry and Sweetcorn
“What grows together goes together” and these two items are next to each other in the garden.”
Strawberry sorbet with toasted hazelnuts, rice pudding, sweet corn ice cream, and a corn caramel atop macerated berries.
The dessert course was paired with a Rhubarb Orange Spritz
Petit Fours
The meal ended with these little bites from the chef.
- orange shortbread cookies
- kawakawa caramel
- rhubarb jellies
The sustainability of this restaurant, using parts of the fruits and vegetable like the pumpkin seeds and skin to make a miso for the sourdough, pickling and canning ingredients that are plentiful in season, foraging, etc. all adds up to the way a restaurant should be run. In fact, Hillside Kitchen has a post on their Instagram about the fact that they had only thrown away 8 bags of garbage by October 2024. Eight bags of garbage in nearly a year! Most restaurants probably generate more than that in a week or even a day.
This was an amazing meal and I loved the concept of a menu designed around truly seasonal ingredients. But I felt that, while delicious, the meal lacked protein; I found myself missing the protein (plant based protein like legumes). That being said, if you are in Wellington and want a delicious vegetarian tasting menu you should put this on your list.
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