Pacific-owned restaurants and a clutch of South Auckland eateries have won places on this year’s Iconic Auckland Eats list, the annual celebration of the 100 dishes that locals say define the city, and the chefs behind them say it is a start they fully intend to build on.
Now in its sixth year, Iconic Auckland Eats is run by Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, the city’s economic and cultural agency, and is built almost entirely on public nominations. More than 2400 people put forward a favourite dish this year, each with a short story about why it mattered to them, and a small judging panel used those stories to whittle the entries down to a final 100. The list deliberately celebrates dishes rather than restaurants, and this year 79 of the 100 were new entries.
A review of the list by Local Democracy Reporting found seven South Auckland eateries and a small number of Pacific-owned businesses among those recognised. They included chef Michael Meredith’s Pacific restaurant Metita, the Tongan-owned Tokos Tacos founded by Ben Fonua, and Māngere favourite Banh Mi Boy, owned by John Giang. Two dishes featuring palusami, the traditional Pacific dish of taro leaves baked in coconut cream, also made the cut, the Paua Palusami from Trivet, where Samoan chef Uelese Mua leads the kitchen, and the Palusami Pie from Pakuranga Bakery.
For Meredith, whose cooking has long carried Pacific flavours into fine dining, the recognition was welcome but only an early step. “The more ethnic Polynesian-focused restaurants come up, I think the more we’ll get recognised,” he told RNZ. “It’s a start, so we’re going to build on that.” He floated the idea of an “Iconic Street Eats” strand that could shine a light on the smaller neighbourhood businesses that feed their suburbs every day but rarely get the spotlight.
Ben Fonua, who built Tokos Tacos around Mexican-style birria tacos, was just as upbeat about what is still to come. “But at the same time, I know the potential is there for the Pasifika people to get a lot more winners,” he said. “I really do think as we progress, the talents will shine later on.” His son, Kisione Lelea Hikulangi Kae Kaea Fonua, works alongside him in the business, a reminder that for many of these eateries the kitchen is a family affair.
John Giang, who brought Vietnamese street food to the heart of South Auckland with Banh Mi Boy, framed his place on the list as a chance to show his community on a bigger stage. “This is my take and me bringing forward my food, my culture, Vietnamese street food to the heart of South Auckland and just for everyone to enjoy,” he said. He wants the programme to keep opening doors for others, describing it as “building more platforms for people who want to get out there and put forward their product, their food, their identity, their culture”.
That note about platforms gets at the gentle challenge running underneath the celebration. The programme uses broad cuisine groupings and does not formally track Pacific-owned businesses or Pacific cuisine as a standalone category, so it can be hard to measure how well the food of South Auckland’s biggest communities is represented from one year to the next. The chefs are not asking for a quota, but several made the same point, that the talent across Māngere, Ōtara and the wider south is far deeper than a handful of entries suggests.
Tātaki Auckland Unlimited says the list is meant to reflect exactly that breadth. “Auckland’s food scene reflects the diversity of Tāmaki Makaurau, including the significant contribution Pacific communities make to the city’s culture, identity and hospitality sector,” the agency’s director of destination, Annie Dundas, said. Because the entire list is nomination-driven, the surest way for more South Auckland and Pacific dishes to appear is for the people who love them to put them forward when nominations next open.
Pacific food is woven through Auckland in a way that does not always show up on best-of lists, from the corner bakery selling a warm palusami pie to the taco joint that has become a weekend ritual for a whole neighbourhood. Small operators often lack the marketing budget to reach beyond their own streets, which is part of why a public stamp like Iconic Auckland Eats can matter so much. A spot on the list is a free shout-out to thousands of food-loving Aucklanders looking for somewhere new to try.
For now, the chefs are treating this year’s recognition as a foundation rather than a finish line. Meredith summed up the mood for many of them, that the doors are starting to open and the job from here is to walk through them. As Fonua put it, the talents will shine later on, and if the cooks of South Auckland have anything to do with it, next year’s list will have a lot more of them on it.
Have a favourite South Auckland or Pacific dish that deserves a wider audience? Tell us about it in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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