Thames
The starting point of the Coromandel Food Trail is the historic gold-mining town of Thames. In the late 19th century it was the largest population centre in New Zealand – thanks to gold – and while it has quietened down a fair bit since then, it’s a great base from which to explore the region.
You can stay in accommodation from Thames’ golden age – built in 1869, The Junction Hotel harks back to the town’s old days. You can eat at the Brew Cafe and Bar, housed in the Brian Boru Hotel, which opened in 1868. There you can sample gastro-pub fare made with local produce from The Cheese Barn at Matatoki, Thames Fisheries, Totara Vineyards, Stratos Olives, and organic veges from Got the Plot farm just east of town.
The Cheese Barn at Matatoki.
For a laid-back harbourside setting and a quality feed of fresh fish, Thames Wholesale Fisheries has the Wharf Coffee House & Bar. While just out of town is the working farm that doubles as the base for The Cheese Barn at Matatoki.
Their organic gouda won a gold medal at the 2016 Champions of Cheese Awards and their selection of certified organic dairy products – from brie and haloumi to stevia-sweetened yoghurt and quark – is impressive. The cafe serves coffee from local artisan roasters Coffee LaLa and a tempting array of goodies and local products.
Coromandel Seafood Fest.
The vegetarian Sola Cafe at the north end of town has Conscious Consumer accreditation, whereby they pledge to use at least 40 percent local produce, so you can enjoy extra-good vibes with a coffee and some conscious cuisine in the tranquil herb garden out the back.
For nature lovers, the Kauaeranga Valley lies in the hills just behind Thames and offers extensive walking tracks and camping opportunities. Thames has even joined in a cross-country arm wrestle with Oamaru to become the SteamPunk capital of New Zealand. Their November festival started in 2015 and is growing in popularity for fans of the Victorian sci-fi mash-up.
Waiomu
If you’re heading to the Coromandel Food Trail early from Auckland to beat the traffic, make for the brunch specialists at Waiomu Beach Cafe for some of their outstanding sticky buns and scrolls warm out of the oven.
We arrived just in time for a bacon, banana and maple syrup sticky bun with a decent blob of whipped cream on the side. That warm, buttery, salty sweet decadence is just the beginning of an extensive, sustainable and local menu.
“It’s a luxury to live here,” says owner Julie McMillan, who celebrates the best of the Coromandel by employing locals at her two cafes, selling local artworks and creating foodie gold from local produce and serving it with beers from Coromandel Brewing Company and Hot Water Brewing, as well as wine from Ohui Wines, who make a wonderful certified-organic blanc de noir. The Coromandel Butcher supplies their meat, and eggs come from Waihi Poultry.
Organic produce from Wilderland.
Necessity being the mother of invention, Julie also has her own dog bikkies if you’ve brought your pooch along for the trip. Her answer to owning a Siberian husky that was “allergic to everything”, they include a healthy combo of rice and carrots.
Waiomu Beach Cafe is a foundation sponsor of Thames Coast Kiwi Care, who collect eggs to save them from breakage and the attention of stoats and weasels, hatch them at Auckland Zoo, then rear them on pest-free Rotoroa Island and return them back to their home territory as juveniles. It’s a bid to rejuvenate the population of Coromandel brown kiwi and the efforts are showing promising signs.
You couldn’t ask for a better cheerleader for all that’s good on the Peninsula, so it’s no surprise to see Julie and her team in charge of the pop-up Kauaeranga Valley Cafe at the gateway to the famous Pinnacles Walk. Goods from her Waiomu operation are available to trampers before they summit the Pinnacles to catch the sunrise.
Coromandel Town
Further north of Thames, on the western side of the Peninsula, you’ll find Coromandel Town. Just before you get there, keep an eye out for the right-turn to Mussel Kitchen for a fantastic stop on the food trail. Started by the Bartrom family of marine farmers, you can stand on the lawn outside Mussel Kitchen with beer in hand and watch the boats coming from the mussel farms.
Three deliveries of green-lipped mussels per week keep the kitchen humming with the freshest possible product – the rest goes to the processing plant in Whitianga, then off overseas. We never tire of complaining in New Zealand about our best produce being exported, so this time you can get in ahead of the foreign hordes.
Eat them fresh, steamed and served in a nifty black pot with a variety of sauces such as Thai green curry, or a classic white wine and cream. They’re also grilled in the half shell with parmesan, crème fraîche, garlic butter or chilli and cheese. The fritters are served standalone and in a burger, and the kitchen cracks out a fine mussel chowder.
Fresh Coromandel mussels.
Mussels are the hero of this haven off the highway, though, and they go spectacularly well with the house-brewed beer. Long-time cafe manager Giovanni Vico has turned his home-brewing skills to crafting beers, which are available at the bistro in generous 650ml bottles for $8 a pop.
There are numerous shellfish-free options including an extensive breakfast menu with all the classics (French toast, big brekkie), a range of burgers, vegetarian lasagne, as well as that all-time favourite – fish and chips.
Giovanni combines his knack for making a tasty, user-friendly beer to enjoy with mussels with a singular skill for naming his brews. He has a classy amber ale called Gun Smoke (“it sounds tough”) a full-bodied but low-alcohol 2.5% ABV light beer called Good Fella (“cos you’re a good fella for drinking light beer”), as well as a pilsner called Gold Digger.
With the sober driver in mind, he has created a very fine ginger beer of grated ginger boiled in sugar and water, then carbonated for an amazingly refreshing summer tipple. He also does lemonade and bottled water. All of it, including the beer, is made with water from the mineral-rich bore at the back of the premises.
There’s charm aplenty in Coromandel Town.
With water shaping up to be the story of 2017 – it’s in the coffee, it’s in the beer, it’s in the soda – it’s good to see artisans caring more and more about the raw materials used in their creations.
Summer is boom time at the Mussel Kitchen and the season culminates with the Mussel Festival, which is celebrated on Waitangi weekend. Three bands play and some of the 500 visitors camp onsite to make for one hell of a party. If you’re worried about the traffic, there’s even space for you to land your helicopter.
In Coromandel Town itself, you’ll want to stop at the award-winning Pepper Tree Restaurant and Bar to sample the local oysters and signature steak – it’s one of the Peninsula’s top restaurants. There’s also the Coromandel Meatkeeper, one of the area’s best butcheries, if you need to stock up on your way to one of the many campsites that dot the epic beaches further north.
Colville
If you blink you’ll miss it, but mark it on your foodie map as the last stop before you’re stuck with spam in a can at the northern Coromandel campgrounds. Roy and Kaye Ward’s Hereford ’n’ a Pickle cafe might just possess the last espresso machine you’ll see on your journey to the likes of Port Jackson, Pork Charles and Waikawau.
Stock up at the family-run farm shop with Kaye’s huge array of pickles and jams, including the multipurpose Rita’s pickle, or satsuma and billington early plum jam. They also sell various cuts of meat from their home-grown stock, such as porterhouse, sirloin, schnitzel, pure beef patties – there’s even seaweed and beef sausages made to an old family recipe.
The Colville post office.
Farmed as naturally as possible, the meat is processed on site by Roy and Kaye’s son, Dave, a self-taught butcher who also does a fine line of cooked salamis and chorizo. At the cafe, there’s freshly made sandwiches, cakes, slices, muffins, biscuits and real-fruit ice cream, or you can fortify yourself with something more substantial – a Pure Hereford beef burger served with Kaye’s beetroot chutney and caramelised onion.
The kids can have a real-fruit ice cream or smoothie, the health nuts can order a beet and chia smoothie, and there are homemade lime and chia or elderflower and lemon drinks.
They’re an arty bunch on the Peninsula, nearly every spot on the food trail features local art for sale. We were particularly taken with Port Charles-based artist Nici Greulich’s manu tukutuku (Maori kite) hanging from the ceiling of Hereford ’n’ a Pickle.
Whenuakite
You can sample Hot Water Brewing Company’s classic range of beers, their award-winning Kauri Falls Pale Ale, Golden Steamer Ale, About Time IPA, and Walkers Porter at bars and restaurants up and down the country.
But for their classy, seasonal small-batch beers and a dose of classic Kiwi summer holiday camping nostalgia, get yourself to their brew bar in tiny Whenuakite. The Hot Water Brewing Company is housed in the old hay barn of Don and Dawn Walker’s farm and is a newish addition to the holiday park they created 11 years ago.
Seasonal beers, like their autumn special SMaSH Dr (single malt and single hop) and Croppers Tun IPA, make way for brewer and Vancouver native Matthew Kiss’ new creations, such as the Endeavour Evergreen. The beer is a nod to Coromandel celebrity visitor Captain James Cook, who popped by in 1769 to observe the transit of Mercury.
Tractors and trailers line the beach at Waitete Bay on Coromandel’s west coast, waiting for the boats to return with the catch of the day.
The enterprising navigator was known for using rimu shoots to brew a spruce beer to treat his crew for scurvy (and sobriety, one assumes). Hot Water Brewing has made their summer thirst-quencher with spruce tips and hops to honour New Zealand’s first brewer.
Pitch up at the Walkers’ family campsite, find someone to mind your kids, and settle in to prevent a dose of scurvy. If no one’s buying that, try quoting the placard that was on display in the bar when Taste visited: “Hops are plants, therefore beer is a salad.”
Incidentally, former Hot Water brewer Dave Kurth swapped brewing beers for flipping burgers early last year and can be seen roaming the Peninsula in his Serial Griller food truck serving up prime beef-smash burgers.
Winding your way home
When you cross over from the west coast to the east coast on the Coromandel Food Trail and begin the ‘run home’ to Thames, here are a few good spots to pop in at.
• Salt in Whitianga does contemporary European cuisine with seasonal New Zealand produce. There’s fusion-style cuisine at The Lost Spring, as well as rustic pizza at the nearby Luke’s Kitchen.
• At Cook’s Beach, Mercury Bay Estate is a boutique winery and restaurant with views overlooking the spectacular Mercury Bay.
• The Coroglen Tavern is one of New Zealand’s iconic country pubs with the heartiest burgers on the Coromandel.
Pizza at Luke’s Kitchen at Kuaotunu.
• Colenso Cafe in Whenuakite specialises in seasonal produce and is situated in a mandarin orchard.
• In Tairua, The Old Mill is a cafe and deli that started life as a timber mill in the 1920s. There’s also the excellent Flock Kitchen and Bar, and Manaia Kitchen in town.
• Turn off to the summer hot-spot of Pauanui and you’ll find the Lime Room Bar & Bistro, The Chocolate Pretzel, Cabana Cafe & Bar, Pauanui Club Bistro or the award-winning Miha Restaurant in the Grand Mercure Puka Park Resort.
• Whangamata is big and bounteous with eating options. Nakontong does for Thai, and there’s Mizzoni Wood-fired Pizza, and Nero’s Bar and Restaurant for a splash of Italian. Take your pick of cafes from the likes of SixFortySix , Barside Espresso, and Blackies by the beach.
