On Wednesday we went out to the Amisfield Winery for lunch which is only a few minutes drive out of Queenstown.
Amisfield is really the entire reason for this trip. Back in Feb 2024 we had just returned from Spain and were half watching a travel show on TV one Saturday afternoon whilst doing other things and they had this amazing looking winery with its stone buildings, snow capped mountains in the background and what looked like an amazing lunch. I had expected this was somewhere in Austria or Switzerland, maybe Northern Italy / South Eastern France.
I was stunned when they mentioned it was just out of Queenstown in NZ, essentially a short 2 hour flight from home in Sydney.
We booked flights to NZ that week and then started planning a holiday around a visit to Queenstown.
The winery did not disappoint, we started with a wine tasting before lunch, and the RKV Reserve Pinot Noir was superb. The Lake Hayes Noble Sauvignon Blanc was also amazing, so we are brining a bottle of that one home.
The lunch was a tasting menu, and involved quite a bit of theatre in its execution, Sharon’ s smoked eel came in a glass cloche filled with smoke, the other item shaped like a small ice cream cone came served in a fish heads mouth (which they take back to the kitchen once you take the cone), you thankfully don’t have to eat the fish heads.
I don’t eat seafood, so my menu was slightly different, and mine was served on a small tree branch.
For me the standout dish was the BBQ Venison, with an amazing glaze jus that was almost mirror like. The taste was sensational. I also had a great duck and orange dish, Sharon had a layered cod dish.
Sharon had her dishes upgraded with additional truffle (I don’t mind a little of it, but find it overpowering so I skipped that option).
The truffle brioche was amazing though, as was the truffle butter which was served on a bed of river rocks, which you had to tap to check which was butter and which was a rock. The FB site “we want plates” would have a field day here……
The daikon (Japanese radish) was a small master piece the way they layered three different cooked versions of it together and presented it so that it looked like a flower on the plate.
The last item on the menu “Kawakawa” is a local plant which had been used to make an ice cream and topped with a fried Kawakawa leaf, quite a nice intense flavour.
If you are looking for a great foodie experience in NZ, put this on your list.
It's all about the coffee 