The November Dinner Menu

From the brilliant mind of our 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 co-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 on into making this month’s menu…

Arc Spelt & Thyme Loaf

lemon and black pepper butter

This month’s menu has been a really fun one for our chefs to get stuck into as it’s a chance to play with the new season’s fresh and zingy flavours. For this month’s bread and butter dish, we channelled the fresh citrus flavours into the butter, pairing it with black pepper to keep things nice and balanced. As for the loaf itself, our spelt and thyme is a nod to the herbs that come into their own in this season - a feature throughout the whole menu.

Ocean Speared

Snapper Aguachile

roasted red pepper, heirloom tomato Pico de Gallo, corn tostada, garlic aoli

We love being able to use Ocean Speared's fish when we can get our hands on it. Their fish is always awesome; really good quality, really fresh, making it perfect for our aguachile. Speaking of fresh, we serve up this Mexican dish with corn tostadas, and there’s no better place in town to get your hands on some freshly made tostadas than our sister restaurant, Paloma. The team over there pour a lotta love and hard work to pumping out the most crisp fresh corn tostadas. Check out their Instagram to see how they do it.

Fried Halloumi

pickled grapes, asparagus, herb labneh, Riesling caramel, pistachio

Regulars will recognise this dish from our menu last year. To our delight, it proved really popular so we jumped at the chance to bring it back, using Whitestone Cheese’s halloumi. Paired with asparagus, and garnished with mint and basil from Alpine Fresh - this is a dish full of spring’s flavours. We throw in a bit of sweetness to add to the fresh flavours in the form of a riesling caramel - we sacrifice a bottle of resiling and reduce it down with white wine vinegar and sugar to make a caramel. A worthy sacrifice in our opinion.

BBQ Venison

wild shot venison fillet, smoked honey BBQ sauce, charred spring onion

OR

BBQ Salmon

Ora King Salmon, smoked honey BBQ sauce, charred spring onion

both served with crushed new potatoes, green goddess dressing

We’ve been able to call on a bunch of our fave suppliers for this month’s main dishes. Salmon from Ora King Salmon, venison from Fare Game and mushrooms from Wanaka Gourmet Mushroom as our vegetarian alternative.

We serve each of these up with our housemade smoked honey BBQ sauce. This took about four batches to get the perfect balance of spicy and sweet (honestly, I still don’t think the chefs are satisfied - true perfectionists!). Our chefs blended Mexican smoked chillis with spices, molasses, honey, tomato paste, garlic, onion and much more. This is put into a cold smoker to let the manuka wood chips work their magic (one day we hope to do this using wood chips from our very own apple trees). Then our chefs blend it, cook it out, blend it again, pass it off, etc etc.

When I asked our chefs about making this sauce, it was clear that perfecting it had taken a little piece of their souls. So if you’re reading this, and you’ve tried the sauce, and you liked the sauce, and you get the chance to let the chefs know, please do.

Not content with whipping up one delicious dressing for the mains, the crushed new potatoes side dish also comes drizzled in our housemade Green Goddess dressing. It begins with a base of lemon mayo with creme fraiche and buttermilk before blending in a faaack load of Alpine Fresh herbs including basil, tarragon, parsley and plenty more. I’ve never been so jealous of a potato.

Garden Rhubarb Fizz

Arc garden’s rhubarb sorbet, bubbles

We’re pretty pleased to be able to use rhubarb from the arc garden for this month’s sorbet. Another fresh and zingy flavour to cleanse the pallet before this month’s dessert…

Tiramisu

honey and almond semifreddo, whipped mascarpone, coffee espuma

Another revisit for the menu. Last time we served up our tiramisu, we offered it as a sharing portion. Sure, sharing is fun but this time around we have restyled it to make it individual portions, because some things are best kept to ourselves. This is such a classic dessert that there’s no need to get too creative with the flavours, although we have taken a little artistic licence when it comes to the textures and assembly. Featuring a honey and almond semifreddo, whipped mascarpone, and coffee espuma. Check out our Instagram to watch it all come together.

And there you have it, the November 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 December menu.

The arc team :)

Making November