Pasture Restaurant
Permanently Closed
Six-seat fine dining with open kitchen, woodfire, and innovative food
Six-seat fine dining with open kitchen, woodfire, and innovative food
"To say too much would be to ruin the magic of an evening spent at Pasture and Boxer, two distinctly different venues that offer the country’s most unique eating and drinking experiences. Pasture is a six-seater restaurant helmed by chef Ed Verner, where diners watch from barstools as the kitchen creates memorable tasting menus over open fire. Next door, Boxer offers a range of complex, seasonal drinks concocted by the chefs of Pasture, based on spirits distilled in-house using a rotary evaporator. Beverages are accompanied by a lavish tasting of snacks that are often fresh, raw, and Japanese-leaning. Look for the signature tuna (eel) and tītī, an endemic seabird with an anchovy-like flavor that’s harvested by Māori hunters on Rakiura (Stewart Island), usually preserved in salt but here cooked fresh. Every element of Pasture and Boxer — from the soundtrack to the bespoke interiors — is carefully curated by the creative team. — LJ Note: Hillary Eaton has a personal affiliation with Pasture and did not author elements related to Pasture, Boxer, or Alpha." - Hillary Eaton, Leisha Jones
"Ed Verner is the chef at Pasture in Auckland, New Zealand." - Travel + Leisure Editors
"It’s a drizzly winter night in Auckland and six guests stand outside Pasture restaurant. A couple dressed to the nines wonders about a dish of chlorophyll-green abalone they saw on Instagram, while two regulars pine for the chef’s three-month-aged wagyu. At 5:45, chef Ed Verner welcomes each guest into the restaurant with a drink and leads them to their seat at the six-person chef’s counter facing the hearth — the fire that brings the 21-course menu to life. Just three weeks after restaurants were allowed to reopen, it’s essentially business as usual at the city’s premiere fine dining destination. In fact, it’s booked solid every weekend into August. Today, as with each day before it, the city seems to lighten from the weight of weeks in isolation, when every meal was made (or microwaved) from what could be scavenged from bare grocery store shelves and even the simplest forms of physical human contact — a hug, a handshake — was an illicit fantasy. It’s hard to remember those times when the only remnants are a paper sign-in sheet at the front of the restaurant and a meter between tables. Tonight, New Zealand feels even more like a tiny island nation alone in the Pacific Ocean than it normally does, especially by the glow of a restaurant’s wood-burning fire." - Eater Staff
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