The story behind the apron: My Kitchen Day Experience

In a city known for its vibrant food scene, a new initiative is bringing Wellington’s chefs together in a refreshing and generous way. Chef Zoe Lloyd shares her first Kitchen Day experience!

A unique, first-of-its-kind, monthly masterclass at Loretta has become a popular meet up for Wellington chefs. Kitchen Day is where local chefs host a cooking demonstration for their peers, sharing recipes and stories about their culinary journey. This initiative is the joint creation of Dominique Fourie (Floridita’s and Loretta) and Chris Thompson (Coffee Supreme). The concept developed as a response to the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the Wellington hospitality industry. The idea is simple: show hospitality to our peers in the same way we show it to guests in our own cafés and restaurants.

Since Kitchen Day began last September, I have attended almost every session, learning from chef’s like Max Gordy (Graze), Pierre Fenoux (Jano Bistro), and Chetan Pangam (One80 Restaurant). Each session starts with unlimited coffee poured by Supreme and ‘shop talk’ with fellow chefs. The hosting chef then begins their demonstration, creating an amazing spread of food enjoyed by everyone at the end of the session. Dominique reached out after we met at the second Kitchen Day to see if I would like to host a class. I was excited (and nervous) to host session six along with Sanjay Dayal, a local fruit and vegetable supplier I worked with at my previous café, Beach House and Kiosk.

Sanjay and his family owned Cuba Fruit for over 50 years, an iconic Wellington fruit and vegetable shop. Sanjay now runs his own company (SKD Consulting), supplying Wellington cafes and restaurants with fresh produce direct from the markets. Sanjay is one of my favourite suppliers. We both believe that seasonal, fresh, local produce is an important part of success in hospitality. We decided we would host a completely vegetarian Kitchen Day to hero fruit and vegetables, weaving together inspiration from our respective Greek and Indian backgrounds.

Our menu began with woodfired flat breads accompanied by beetroot raita and a traditional lime pickle made by Sanjay’s mum, Puspa. The next two dishes were crowd favourites: hasselback spiced eggplants and baked halloumi with honey, thyme, and apricots. Complementing the main dishes, we had a watermelon and pomegranate salad with sumac and mint, along with red pepper masala-covered roasted baby Agria potatoes with fresh coriander and olive oil.

The underlying spirit of Kitchen Day is about giving back to the Wellington hospitality community. I have made new connections by attending previous sessions and I really enjoyed sharing from the other side of the kitchen pass. At their heart, chefs are storytellers:  we communicate through food. Every ingredient, every dish, and every recipe has a memory attached. For me, olives always remind me of my Yiayia (grandmother). Growing up in Wellington, my Yiayia would take my sister and I walking around the streets of Mount Victoria. With an old wooden broom in her hand, she would whack the olive trees on the side of the road to release the fruit. Leaving my sister and I the embarrassing job of gathering the fallen olives and transporting them home in recycled shopping bags.

Dominique and Chris share a belief in what they have coined ‘radical generosity’. They use Kitchen Day to bring a bit of joy and light into the hospitality industry during hard times. This has been my experience after attending each session, and even more so after hosting myself.

Kitchen Day has a standing open invitation to all chefs. To find out which chef is hosting the next session or to join in, follow @kitchenday.nz on Instagram.