When a butcher shop closed in the hillside Wellington village of Kelburn, locals wondered what might come next. There’s no meat on the menu at Graze Wine Bar, which opened in April, but on a mid-week autumnal night, with every one of the 22 seats taken and people waiting at the door to get in, that didn’t seem to disappoint anyone.

From the street, the interior glows with yellow lighting. Diners perching at the kitchen bar watch as chef and co-owner Max Gordy pan-fries eggplant he had earlier grilled over coals, and gently plates it with a pine nut “milk”, toasted pine nuts, pickled figs and fig leaf oil.

Chicago-born Gordy and Stina Persen are the husband-and-wife team behind Graze – an intimate venue with sustainability at its core. In a celebration of New Zealand, the menu showcases local, seasonal vegetables, seafood and beverages – and produce that Gordy forages for around Wel-lington.

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When Broadsheet visits, the chef has gathered porcini mushrooms from nearby Mount Victoria and is serving them in perogies (Polish cheese and potato dumplings). “The mushrooms just grow on the hill over there,’’ he says, pointing out the window. He uses goat’s cheese from goats grazing on the same hill.

The couple has been a team since they were head chef and front of house at Thorndon’s Hillside Kitchen, a well-regarded vegetarian eatery nearby. But they wanted to do their own thing and when the butcher shop came up for lease – in a set of shops among a boutique, a hairdresser and a Four Square supermarket – they took it over.

Gordy is determined to be as close to zero-waste as possible, with a concise, ever-changing food menu on a blackboard on the wall. He also adheres to the slow fish movement, only serving seafood that is harvested sustainably. This means he won’t touch fish caught in a trawler, opting instead for spearfish he gets from a fisher, with whom he has built a relationship.

While dishes such as pāua crudo with feijoas are hyperlocal, some of the food is influenced by American-born Gordy’s time cooking in Chicago and Buenos Aires. In Chicago, he cooked in the fish section at the Michelin-star Naha, a former Chicago dining institution. Johnny cakes (corn pancakes) with macadamia and beetroot are a nod to his American heritage. In the open-plan kitchen, he pan-fries butterfish coated in wild spices, served with polenta in roasted fish stock. It’s “a play on catfish. I’m drawing on American-style cuisine without the super fatty feel afterwards.’’

The wine list features 30 New Zealand wines from hand-picked producers such as family-owned Astrolabe Wines from Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay’s minimal-intervention Decibel Wines. Spirits arrive in five-litre refillable bottles from Southward Distilling Co on Cuba Street.

In the space itself, much of the decor has been reused or repurposed. A butcher’s sign hanging on the bare concrete walls was found out the back during the renovations and retro light fittings hang in different colours. Persen and her mother found pairs of old jeans and sewed them on to the top of the second-hand bar stools and chairs.

She talks about the increasing need for places like Graze – in challenging times, people are craving intimate, familiar environments. “There’s a move towards embracing places [that] are small and authentic. We’ve got a small team and we’re a small place, so we’ll all get to know each other.’’

Graze Wine Bar
95 Upland Road, Kelburn, Wellington

Hours:
Wed & Thurs 4pm–11pm
Fri & Sat 4pm–12am
Mon & Tues closed

Grazewinebar.co.nz
@grazewinebar

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This article was published on May 9, 2022. Some menu items may have changed since publication.