Gisborne has many fantastic restaurants and cafes, with access to quality fresh produce.
A special delicacy is now grown and available only in Gisborne. The saffron milk cap is a gourmet mushroom so prized in the Northern Hemisphere; it sells for around 50 dollars a kilo.
Until now, it has largely been found in the wild, but a Gisborne company has found a way to grow them commercially, giving New Zealand the chance to take a bite out of a global mushroom market worth five billion US dollars.
The misty hills behind Gisborne are the perfect spot for a romance, a love affair between the humble pine tree and the exotic saffron cap mushroom.
“They kind of grow a relationship with the tree, we call it a symbiotic relationship, so the mushroom helps the tree and the tree helps the mushroom,” says Sheldon Drummond, of the First Light Mushroom Company.
The 400 hectare plantation has become a laboratory for First Light Mushrooms and the Government's science institute, Crop and Food Research. Together, they have developed the science for a million dollar export industry. Saffron caps will be available in restaurants here, but Europe and Asia are the target.
As a boy, chef Stephane Dussau collected saffron mushrooms in a forest in France. Now half a world away at his Gisborne restaurant, the mushrooms have come to him.
“It's fantastic. When you pan fry it you get all the goodness from the forest will come to your nose and you cook mushroom with other ingredients, they need a little bit of something with it, so I usually cook with garlic and flat leaf parsley,” says Dussau.
The Marina Restaurant in Gisborne is the only place in New Zealand that you can sample this rare delicacy. The restaurant will be hosting a 4 course Degustation menu in association with First Light Mushroom Company on Saturday the 2nd May 2009.
Places are extremely limited and bookings are absolutely essential.
Telephone them on: 8685919 to secure your seat to taste this wild mushroom delicacy.
Menu
Glass of Kir Royal
Saffron Milkcap soup with French bread stick
Buckwheat crêpes with sauté Saffron Milkcap, garlic, parsley and cream
Saffron Milkcap tartlette with salad greens
Feijoa & rhubarb torte
Mushroom meringues, tea or coffee
$75 per person
