Kapiti Kai Uncovered

When it comes to food and beverage, it’s impossible to fake authenticity. Badly made shoes from China won’t fall apart till halfway through the night, but badly made food looks or smells wrong at first glance.

There’s one area of the Wellington region that’s quietly producing an extraordinary amount of authentic food and beverage products that are making foodies and ordinary folk take note.

Whether they make beer or bread, Kapiti food and beverage artisan producers have a few things in common – the Kapiti lifestyle, belief in their craft and the naturalness of what goes into our mouths, and the decision to not let their accountants determine their recipes or methods. They also use that word‘passion’. A lot.

Tuatara Beer

It’s 6.00am on the pretty countryside in Reikorangi (just inland from Waikanae) and Carl Vasta is putting on his gumboots to go to work. Ahead are a large chiller and a couple of farm-type sheds. As he approaches, the smell of the fermentations waftsup to greet him and mist steams from the metal tanks. This is the Tuatara Brewery, the ever-expanding home of the boutique Tuatara Beer.

Their beers are made using traditional European methods and include only natural ingredients – so no nasties. They’re between 5% and 6.5% alcohol. Carl says he’s out to challenge the unconverted. “Tui drinkers are untouchable, but Heineken and Steinlager drinkers are happy to make the leap.” Tuatara drinkers choose product by quality and uniqueness, not price, and engage in the buy-local trend, especially urban dwellers.

Carl is a home brewer from way back. His grandfather’s sister married into the Harley’s Brewery family in Nelson. “I found that little snippet quite interesting,” he says. “When you look back at that kind of stuff, you go, ‘Oh, so that could bepart of it.’”

He had stints at brewing and being a publican with Polar Brewery and the Parrot & Jigger.But having to deal with chefs and young bar staff wasn’t his cup of tea. He and his wife Simone moved to the Kapiti coast and bought a bar in Raumati, The Big Chill, which has changed names so many times it’s mostly referred to as ‘that what’s-its-name-now pub in Raumati’. It wasn’t for them. But staying in Kapiti was. “I don’t leave the property sometimes,” says Carl. “We’re reasonably close to town but far enough away to be rural. You can’t see the neighbours.”

He then joined forces with Sean Murrie (publican of the Malthouse) and Bar Bodega’s founder, Fraser McInnes, and in 2001 created the Tuatara Brewery in his backyard. Their beers started winning awards almost quicker than they were being bottled.

Simone says there is one drawback about living and working in the same place. “If Carl ever gets bored at home, he’ll go to work.”

They both know some of the other producers in Kapiti and have pooled resources for some joint ventures, including a stint on the Logan Brown Hunger for the Wild show with Waikanae Crabs.

Even though they’re doing incredibly well, there’s no time to sit back and chill. While Tuatara is dealing with camera crews and hiring new staff, they’re also building a new chiller, reorganising the bottling area and dealing with the many new enquiries for their product.

There’s dodgy mobile phone reception at the brewery but it doesn’t hinder progress. Tuatara Brewery has doubled their output every year for the past four years.The question of when do they stop becoming a boutique beer causes a bit of a rub of the forehead for Carl.

“You stop becoming a boutique brewer when your accountant sets your recipe,” he says. “As long as we’re still in charge and using premium ingredients, and using tried and tested traditional processes, we’ll always be boutique. The only reason for changing that is to make it cheaper and quicker.” You also stop being boutique when the love goes, which for Carl won’t be any time soon.

Purebread

After being chased by goats, Robert Glensor yells, “Thank you girls, for your kind donations” to his free-range chooks as he gathers their eggs. This is what you’ll see if you go to Paraoa Bakehouse’s website and watch the farm video. Owner and ‘caring baker’ Robert is doing the feeding rounds on his organic and sustainable farm in Te Horo. He then picks up a green egg and explains that green eggs are good for people with allergies. His rounds finish with him giving bread to little piglets with very cute twirly tails.

Paraoa Bakehouse, home of Purebread and arguably the best gluten-free bread available in New Zealand, was the first BioGro-certified organic bakery in New Zealand (1996). Last year, they won the Sustainable Business of the Year award at the Sustainable Business Network’s Central Regional Awards. Robert flew to the posh awards night in Auckland (he had to swap his jandals for shoes), then flew back the next day to rescue premature baby pigs on his farm. So it’s safe to say they’ve remained very ‘grass roots’.

On the sustainability side, the bakehouse produces waste from its 5,000 loaves of bread a week no bigger than a large pumpkin. Everything that isn’t utilised in the bakery goes back to the farm.

“The organic thing is very, very important to us. If you’re really true to sustainability, you cannot ignore organics. The food we eat and the way we farmis not at all sustainable unless it’s organics. It’s an absolute no brainer that if people support sustainability then they support organics.”

But the word ‘organics’ has such a stigma. Robert would like to come up with another word for it, and he’d like his loaves to be in the main section at supermarkets instead of tucked away in the ‘hippy’ section. It might help the old ‘rice brick’ stigma of gluten-free loaves too.

Robert has never had a corporate job. When he left school he trained to be a mechanic but soon swapped the workshop floor for grass and cow pats to go farming in Upper Hutt. There he spent most of his time peering into the neighbours’ paddocks.“They weren’t using pesticides or drenching their cows with chemicals. Their grass was good, everything was good. I became more and more interested in organic farming.”

After years of taking his own bread and beer to parties, he took a leap of faith and bought the old bakery on SH1 in Paraparaumu, popular for Sally Lunns and potato-toppies. The previous owners decided to give ‘this silly old bugger with a crazy idea’ a go. His next venture was to create Paraoa Bakehouse on Kapiti Road.

A business like Paraoa Bakehouse would do well anywhere in New Zealand, and Robert admits it would be more financially viable to be in Auckland or even closer to Wellington. But the symbiotic benefits of having the farm and the bakery, and good local fishing, are enough to keep him in Kapiti. “There are some really successful companies here, and it’s neat to be part of that. But they’re not all making millions and it’s bloody hard work."

Soprano

But it’s not all gumboots and fresh air on the coast. Limoncello, a sophisticated traditional Italian lemon liqueur, is being produced by the owners of the renowned Soprano Ristorante in Paraparaumu Beach.

These days, Corrado Ronchetti looks more like a chemist than a chef. As well as creating Italian dishes in the restaurant he owns with partner Annemarie Tiffin, he’s bottling an age-old tradition and battling sticky labels in a factory aroundthe corner.

Limoncello is to Italians what tomato sauce is to Kiwis, except it’s not only something you have for pleasure; it’s also a digestive aid. Italian-born Corrado stilluses the same recipe that’s been in his family for years, although he’s now branching out with a new Limoncello crème and other varieties. The crème tastes like the best icing part of a cake.

They started producing more than the odd bottle for guests at their restaurant because of the dearth of lemons falling from their own and neighbours’ trees. They now source lemons commercially from just one place to get consistency of flavour and colour. The alcohol was originally added to the drink, but they quickly changed back to making it themselves because the bought version was interfering with the flavour. It’s important to Corrado that the recipe stays authentically Italian.

“Since we moved up here, he’s had more time to be creative,” says Annemarie. Corrado ‘plays’ in the factory while Annemarie deals with the marketing, costing and production sides of the business. “He wouldn’t have a clue about all those things,” she says. In a thick Italian accent, Corrado waves his hand and says, “Yes, yes. I’m lucky, I’m lucky.”

Turning a hobby in to a business was almost forced upon them. Demand outgrew supply and they committed to a factory near Paraparaumu Airport. The rent is the same as they’d pay in Wellington, but Annemarie says they wouldn’t think of moving it to town. “It’s a very easy life up here. Everything’s at your doorstep. But it’s no longer a sleepy old beach town. The demographic has changed; there’re new cultures coming in.”

They’re doing well. They’ve recently had enquiries from an overseas bar and a large New Zealand retail liquor chain. Chefs at Logan Brown use their Limoncello in a dessert dish.

Corrado jokes that he wants to become as popular overseas as the All Blacks and sheep. Annemarie isn’t so sure. They’re doing business on their own at the moment, and the jump to dealing with staff and labelling machines is another story.

So are Corrado’s Italian superstitions – he won’t sign a business deal on a Tuesday. Other superstitions include leaving wardrobe doors open and black cats. Very Italian. And so is ringing his mother every day. See… authentic.

Anna Head, food and beverage sector manager at Grow Wellington says food is all about passion. “Wellington, including Kapiti, has many innovative and classy people who work really well together. Like in the Wairarapa, they recognise their strengths. And in Kapiti, the producers are staunch lovers of their area. Wellingtonians have known for a long time about what’s available up there. Now they’re talking about it and celebrating it more.”