Sustainable dining

If you don’t know Shop Eight, you should. It opened a couple of years ago in a tiny space on New Regent Street in Christchurch and expanded upstairs into a cute little space where on a crisp spring evening, a couple of dozen people came for dinner with Taste and Lincoln University.

Shop Eight hosted a dinner based on the sustainable future of food.

We often hear that people want to know where their food comes from – which is entirely understandable given the state of the global food system. But there’s a wider issue. New Zealand might produce more than its citizens could ever possibly eat – meaning we don’t suffer from the same food security challenges that other countries do – and yet supermarkets still sell American oranges and Australian beans, just at a time where we’re becoming aware of the impact what we’re eating is having on the planet.

Shop Eight chef Michael Smith cooks a sustainable feast for food dining and industry experts.

The more complicated things get and more food trends come and go, the more we crave authenticity and simplicity, with ingredients that haven’t travelled very far or been treated with very much at all. When you do that, you tend not to interfere as much as you used to, because you don’t need to. “I try and cook as little as possible,” said Shop Eight’s gently-spoken chef Michael Smith.