Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) recently hosted international tastemakers at ‘the restaurant with the most stars’ to put New Zealand’s night skies and world class cuisine on the map, part of its new strategy aimed at growing off-peak, year-round visitation and helping tourism continue to thrive as a vital export for the country.
This unique restaurant experience of dining under the starry skies of Kura Tawhiti (Castle Hill) at the foothills of the Southern Alps on New Zealand’s South Island is called Pou-o-kai, created by New Zealand chef Ben Bayly, renowned for pioneering Kiwi cuisine globally.
Guests from Australia, China, India, Japan, North America, the UK, Germany, Singapore and South Korea were treated to a bespoke six-course degustation menu under the destination’s dark skies. Meticulously crafted using the finest winter produce and native ingredients, the menu celebrated the diverse array of ingredients available to manuhiri (visitors) throughout New Zealand.
Bayly will rotate select dishes from the menu across his New Zealand restaurants (Ahi, Aosta, Origine, Little Aosta, The Bathhouse) in Auckland, Queenstown and Arrowtown through to August 2025.
To support the campaign, a suite of assets for travel trade will be made available to promote dining and stargazing experiences across New Zealand. This includes a product manual, 10-day itinerary and training videos centred around stargazing, wellness, food and wine, and accommodation. These assets will be available in Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean. The product manual is also available in Thai and Bahasa Indonesia.
René de Monchy, chief executive, TNZ, said: “Set in New Zealand’s winter, this event celebrates Aotearoa New Zealand as a culinary destination and showcases it as a compelling destination for international visitors all-year round. Deeply rooted in kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and manaakitanga (hospitality), Aotearoa New Zealand’s food identity honours both people and place, resulting in a distinct agricultural richness and vibrant, culinary culture.”
“We think that New Zealand cuisine is in a category of its own – we call it superior cuisine, worth a journey to the edge of the earth,” explained Bayly.
