Making December
The December Menu
From the brilliant mind of Head Chef and co-owner, Sam, we’ve got another menu ready to tell you all about. Fetching inspiration from all around, whether that be friend and fellow chef James Stapley (the great mind behind Kika and Paloma, and fellow owner of arc), the motley crew working hard at arc both front and back of house, or, most importantly, what’s fresh and in season that month.
Indulge us as we natter on about what goes into making this month’s menu…
Italian Herbs & Cheese
arc spelt & herb loaf, smoked garlic & parmesan butter
The sandwich lovers amongst you may have picked up the play on a widely known sandwich chain’s own version of this bread. It is intentional, we reckon Italian herbs and cheese is one of, if not the most, popular for a reason. But we decided to make it even better (we are biased) by adding a big slab of garlic infused butter. Plus, our bread is made by the skilled and experienced hands of Chef Josh - which should in itself add a couple of extra points. As always, we just want to serve you really really good bread with really really good butter.
Arc Caprese
stracciatella de burrata, heirloom tomato, basil & pinot noir caramel
Our take on the classic Italian dish, originating from the island of Capri. We haven’t touched the core ingredients - tomato, mozzarella, and basil - because why would you. But our chefs have let loose a little when it comes to the dressings. A summary looking plate that also gives off Christmassy vibes thanks to the vivid green allium dressing and rich red pinot caramel. Allium for those like myself who didn’t know prior to trying this dish, refers to anything from the allium family which includes garlic, onions, shallots, leeks and spring onions. Basically, anything that gives off green shoots as it grows. The more ya know!
Crayfish Caesar
tora crayfish, scampi, caesar dressing, local cos lettuce
We have sourced the Crayfish in this dish from Tora Collective who catch to order and ship the same day to capture the true fresh taste. Sustainability is always at the forefront of everything the Tora Collective do. We were pretty impressed when the delivery of our first Crayfish order came packaged in home-compostable/recyclable materials and wrapped in seaweed to help preserve the freshness - almost like they are still wrapped up in the sea!
The local lettuce is sourced from our good friends at Frogsong Farm and Alpine Fresh. And we layer this dish up with a whole army of herbs. The idea behind the herb choice (aside from complimenting flavour-wise of course) was to try and find leaves that looked like crayfish or at least something from their natural environment. And if it’s not giving ‘under the sea’ vibes, then we probably just picked it because it looks like a Christmas tree. It is December after all.
Grilled Beef Fillet
grass-fed savannah angus fillet, whitestone shenley station blue cheese butter
OR
Grilled Salmon
ora king salmon, tarragon & shallot butter
both served with asparagus with herb gremolata, potato pavé
Protein, veg, potato and a hearty slab of butter. As simple as that. Sort of.
We’re playing with our food again when it comes to the butter flavours, adapting them to compliment their paired protein. For the beef, our chefs have created a blue cheese butter. Often a divisive flavour, I - as someone who tends to avoid blue cheese - asked Chef Sam what he would say to convince someone like myself to try it. He explained that to make it, the butter is heated and browned, then allowed to cool before folding the blue cheese through and setting. This means the flavour is not as strong as pure blue cheese and is mellowed out by the nuttiness of the brown butter. If you’re really not sure, our chefs can present it on the side of the plate and you decide how much of it you try. So far they’ve found the plate still comes back clean - so probably worth a try.
Our seasonal asparagus and greens are drizzled with a herb gremolata. A herb-y dressing a bit like chimichurri consisting of chopped herbs with lemon juice and olive oil.
As for the potato pave, this has been described charmingly by our chefs as “a f*ck about”. They begin by slicing an ungodly amount of potatoes very very thin. Make an oil infused with garlic and rosemary oil and layer with the potatoes. Bake it, press in the fridge overnight, portion up, and fry to serve. I can’t see what the Chefs are complaining about…
Arc 75
locally foraged elderflower sorbet, bubbles
Our sorbet is based on a classic French cocktail - the French 75. A gin cocktail made with lemon juice, elderflower and champagne, named after the French 75mm field gun used in World War 1 because it packs a kick! We pour bubbles and a limoncello syrup over our elderflower sorbet - made with elderflower foraged locally in Wanaka.
Strawberry & Cream Mille-Feuille
red bridge strawberries, cardamon & white chocolate crème pâtissière, mascarpone, pistachio, puff pastry
Depending on who you ask, Mille-fuille translates to millions of layers, or millions of sheets, or millions of leaves. It is fairly universally accepted as having lots of layers of delicious things. We start off our layers with locally sourced strawberries from Red Bridge Berries. We always look forward to strawberry season and try to work Red Bridge’s produce into the menu wherever we can. Along with the dessert, we’re also offering a Strawberry Daiquiri made with Red Bridge’s berries (which, by the way, is available on our Happy Hour menu 5pm-6pm…)
We also add a layer of piped white chocolate crème pâtissière. Although, whether this component actually is a crème pâtissière (crème pât) is the million dollar question here at arc. Created by accident when, many menus ago, our chefs tried to make a white chocolate cheesecake using white chocolate mousse, which failed. Miserably. The mix poured out the cracks in the tin and in a panicked attempt to not waste the white chocolate, our chefs stuck it in the fridge whilst they decided their next move, only to discover it actually set really well. And also tasted delicious. Our curious chefs decided to whip it and found it was super stable, light and creamy. Making it a pretty useful component for a dessert.
So they repeated the same steps, with a bit more intention and a little less ‘winging it’. Played with the ratios slightly, cooked it, cooled it, whipped it. And created what we now affectionately call, ‘white chocolate stuff’. We also managed to make a milk chocolate version, to pair with our Choux bun in our September Menu.
Like a crème pât, it’s made with eggs and milk, but also has chocolate in there. It’s not quite a ganache because that would be chocolate and cream and there’s no cream in this mixture. Sort of like a swiss butter cream because of the chocolate and butter, but a swiss butter cream wouldn’t normally be whipped after it’s set. So for now we’ll refer to it as a crème pât on the menu, but between us, it’s really arc’s white chocolate stuff.
And there you have it, the December Menu complete. If you haven’t already had the chance to try it for yourself, head to our booking page and let us know what you think.
Check back next month for the ‘Behind the Scenes’ of our first menu of 2026.
The arc team :)
