Reviews Pasture

With one set menu designed for the season and talented chefs using various techniques such as cooking with wood-fire, fermentation, dry-aging and cheese making, your meal at Pasture is one of its kind. The restaurant only seat 6 and takes two seating times at 5:45PM and 8:15PM. Instead of seating at secluded tables hidden in the dining room, you’re in the middle of it all at the Chef’s Counter where you can directly engage with the kitchen.



Booking a table pre-COVID has always been a hard task with the weekends being taken up as soon as bookings become available. We managed to get a table as soon as they started taking reservations under level one - Understandable as this award winning restaurant is well praised in the dining community (3 Hats in Cuisine, 2019 Metro Restaurant of the Year, Best Chef & Fine Dining Restaurant)



My meal at Pasture last Sunday was exceptional. We paired our meal with a non-alcoholic pairing and was thrilled at the creative choices of matches of beverage to dish. Each dish is surprising and innovative, creative with attention to detail. Watching the chefs elegantly assemble and prepare your meal right in front of you is a real treat.



If you have any dietary requirements, this might not be suitable for you. I haven’t eaten a banana in 20 years and have managed to avoid red meat for the last 6 months. This changed last night and I have no regrets. The set menu also sets you back $250 and the non-alcoholic pairing is another $70 per person. It’s not a cheap meal.



Do I love and recommend it? Yes!

Would I be back next season when the menu change? When my wallet recovers

Had an amazing, unique and memorable experience tonight at pasture. The food was incredible, the team definitely pushed limited and experimented with their ingredients. I lovely how their menu is a secret, purely because they use the most seasonal ingredients when designing their menu. I’d love to go back in a different season to try out the difference. I would say, go with an open mind and be ready to explore.
Ed and his team had excellent service. They were attentive and very accommodating. Watching them work in the kitchen was fascinating. Everyone can and would step in and be part of the process to prepare each dish.
Lastly, I cannot say which is my favorite dish as it cannot be described with a singular. As the menu is kept secret I would not spoil it for you, but attach photo as an indication of what to expect.

Had the most amazing dining experience @pasture_akl this week. It was a 3-hour culinary show, 🐼enjoyed every second of it! Some of my favorite dishes are photographed 1️⃣ Smoked Blue Mackerel 2️⃣ Rock Lobster 3️⃣The Pig Crumpet 4️⃣New Zealand Wagyu 💯 Seating only six people a session, make sure to book with them early! The chef said he loves his seafood and I absolutely agree, his seafood dishes were mind blowing! Head to @pandadrools on Instagram for more honest food reviews!

Can I give 6 stars?! Without doubt this is the best food experience in NZ and based on my travels, would rival anything available elsewhere in the world. The imagination, the creativity, the understanding, the technique, the precision and the passion on show makes for an incredible experience. Faultless.

Wow. How can one describe this amazing. The food is just outstanding! Unexpected, fresh, seasonal. The highlights are the year old aged butter and fresh sourdough bread, then comes the crumpet that is so delicate and tasty. And then we have the dream wagyu steak that is best steak you will ever taste. Service is impeccable. And love watching all the prep and cooking happening right in front of you

Sophisticated and mind-boggling brilliant. 
Pasture is the only restaurant of its kind in Auckland, if not New Zealand, with a style reminiscent to Japanese Omakase, where you sit at the kitchen counter with the courses decided by the chef and not disclosed to you before hand.

I have been eyeing this place up for a while now, but have never been able to get a reservation due to the sheer popularity and the small size of the restaurant, however, I somehow managed to get a last minute reservation due to a cancellation, (otherwise the earliest available booking was in two months time). One thing to note is that upon booking a deposit of $50 per person is required and the drinks pairing must be picked during the booking.

I loved the ambience of the restaurant, it is cozy and rustic yet chic, as if you were invited to a chef friend's private kitchen. The counter only seats six and I wouldn't have it any other way. Sitting in front of an open kitchen really enhances the dining experience as you can see the next courses being prepared in front of you. There is also something so visceral about sitting in front of an open flame and experiencing the changes in temperature and smell as the meal progresses and meats are being cooked over the fire. This multisensory approach to dining in my opinion really elevates Pasture over its fine dining counterparts.

The service at Pasture is also second to none. Due to the small size of the restaurant, there are no waiters and instead you are served directly by the chefs. The chefs here are amazing - they are friendly, attentive and more than happy to explain all of the dishes and drinks and answer any question you may have. The pace of the meal was also excellent - in total there were 14 courses, lasting just under three hours.

In terms of the food, I do not want to spoil it by revealing too much about the menu as in my opinion the secrecy of the courses only adds to the dining experience. That said, the food at Pasture really challenges your perception of food and flavours. The theme of the restaurant is modern fine dining, incorporating New Zealand ingredients, however, the menu also has an excellent blend of Japanese and Scandinavian influences. Two of the highlights for me were the diamond shell clams with persimmon and buffalo cream, a combination that seemed so foreign to me yet was absolutely genius and also the muttonbird (something I had never heard of before today and apparently only available for 2-3 weeks per year from Stewart Island) which tasted nothing like what I expected it. All the other courses were also of excellent quality - they were presented simply yet tasted wonderfully complex.

Likewise, the non-alcoholic drinks pairing really challenges your sense of taste and worked wonderfully with the dishes served. The pairing featured a mixture of pressed juices, imitation wine and mocktails; utilising ingredients that I had never before seen in drinks such as artichoke, celeriac and hay. On paper, this might seem slightly gimmicky, but I thoroughly enjoyed the taste of each of the drinks and the complexity they brought into the menu.

One of the potential downsides to this resturant is that there is a particular focus around ageing and fermenting foods and drinks. This means that if you do not enjoy the subtle sour tang and umami that the ageing process incorporates then this restaurant might not be for you.

Overall:
Ambience 5/5
Service 5/5
Quality 5/5
Portion size 5/5
Presentation 5/5
Value 5/5

Pasture has set the bar extremely high when it comes to high end fine dining in Auckland and I feel that the restaurant of the year title was well deserved. This restaurant is really pushing the boundaries of modern haute cuisine in New Zealand and I hope more restaurants will follow in its path of downsizing and providing a more intimate dining experience with exclusively kitchen counter seats (one can only dream). That said, the experience does not come cheap - for us, the course menu with non-alcoholic drinks pairing came to $670 for two people, which is well above its competitors in Auckland. Even so, I still wholeheartedly think that it is worth experiencing the offerings at Pasture at least once if you are into fine dining and modern cuisine.

Pasture takes your fine dining to the next level.

A deposit is required on reservation. The courses were confidential until arrival at the dining bar.

You are seated at the bar towards the open kitchen, where you observe the team preparing for the courses; Whilst, the owner will indepthly explains the origins of the ingredients and the process of the preparation.

The owners of the restaurant certainly goes through the extra miles to maximize your palate. They source exquisite ingredients and use aging to intensify their flavors. The wagyu was probably the best I’ve ever had, rich and buttery with the perfect savoriness. The abalone was divine. We also tasted the white asparagus during its fleetingly short season. Even the simple bread and butter tasted amazing, their sourdough takes a few of days to cook and the butter was ages over many month.

We went home with a satisfied palate and a sourdough loaf.

It’s a premium to pay but the experience and food you encounter is definitely worthy.

Food taste: 10/10
Food presentation: 9/10
Service: 10/10
Location: 8/10
Ambience: 9/10
Price $200 per person (excl alcohol)

The food at Pasture was unlike anything else I've eaten. They push the limits in terms of trying to bring out maximum flavour, like the triumphant tomato slow roasted for hours or the slow wood fired baby corn served in the husk. Other dishes were fresh and light using tastes I've never seen before such as the cucumber apple and borage dish and the peach sorbet with tarragon. The main dish of beef shoulder was as well cooked a piece of meat as any I've had for a long time. Soft and rare all the way through the slice with a fine dense smokey crust. Along with the highs there were some dishes that I felt missed the mark, but that's what you get when a restaurant is trying to give you a new experience. Serious grown up eating.

Went there a few months ago, really good experience. Great service and fantastic food!
Will definitely go back again on special occasions...

My partner and I recently enjoyed an evening at Pasture where we both were surprised and delighted with the offering of Menu 003 with pasture match. The food was playful, innovative and unquestionably delicious, the homemade juices were just something else. We spent the evening wide eyed and grinning at the unique flavours we experienced enjoying every dish served to us. The venue is elegant and cosy and we felt at home straight away, the chef's were engaging and clearly delighted with our responses their dishes. After experiencing other notable high end restaurants  in Auckland that follow a predictable pattern Pasture was an epic breath of fresh air.

Intriguing and considered, the tasting menu captures nature's best. Pasture is a new kid on the block but is certain about what it offers, and does it very well. It ferments, preserves, cooks over fire and its points of difference are the beverage and bread programme. The wine list breaks the stock standard Sav/Chardy/Pinot template and instead makes space for interesting drops like a Shiraz Riesling that was both creamy and effervescent. Pasture gives whole grain bread another meaning, literally taking whole grains, milling them into flour before culturing and baking the dough. The secret sauce to all this is time and passion -an intensive labour of love.

A beautiful meal at Pasture. The menu is innovative and unique - many dishes challenge the thinking on flavour combinations, but were delicious and truely an experience to consume. The wine pairings all matched the dishes well and were generously poured. The service was attentive without being overbearing and the ambience was great. Looking forward to returning some day.

Unbelievable, Ed and the team always take it to the next level. Pictures really don't do the amazing quality, attention to detail or sheer gumption of the team. The food is excellent, the drinks match are excellent. I haven't been so satisfied by a meal as I am when I come here. I can't wait to come back for .y third time.

Epic experience, have been 4-5 times now, planning on going back for the next seasonal menu. Pasture isn’t just the food, it’s also the service, the conversations, and the sheer creativity. It’s a “food experience”, and there’s certainly nothing in NZ that can compare.

We had the fish sandwich and the salmon on rye. We really enjoyed the balanced and comforting flavors. There were also some tempting donuts (smoked raspberry, sorrel cream options), pastries and bread to buy on the spot.

always a treat Pasture will always feels like a celebration the passion and the dedication of the people behind it speaks to how wonderfully curated the experience is very well thought out dishes and beverage pairing something about your food being prepared Infront of you is a bold call that I always want Pasture provides a fully orchestrated experience from the moment you enter Boxer you have been taken care of

It was amazing food and ed was a great chef with amazing talents and very friendly while cooking we got a little spoiled because it was the last day of season so we got a little more steak but overall amazing restaurant.

We spent the evening here last weekend after having our first experience back in 2020 and it was as amazing as we remembered, if not even better. Every single dish is absolutely extraordinary, the chefs put their everything in to every dish and it is worth every dollar. The service and atmosphere is beyond fantastic. A perfect evening for two new parents who don’t get to venture out very often these days. We cannot wait to return.

This was out singular Auckland culinary experience. From the moment we arrived, Pierre and his chef-led operation made us bite after bite and served us glass after glass of superb taste, texture and titillation. We are up to 25 Michelin stars at this point. We can easily suggest two stars for Pasture. Many thanks for a wonderful evening.

One of the best dining experiences I have ever had in Auckland. Beautiful presentation of exceptional quality food. As the menu changes almost daily it's not possible to make recommendations but the wagu beef was unbelievably good. Very expensive but totally worth it if you have something special worth celebrating.