A Unique Brasserie Experience

Hands on with truffle

Superior Cuisine student Melissa Rose holding the supplied truffle.

On the 1^st and 2^nd of September our superior cuisine students were hard at work in our brasserie kitchen. Unlike brasserie events we’ve hosted in the past, this terms was more unique and extravagant than ever thanks to our master cuisine chef Francis Motta and the New Zealand Truffle Cooperative.

Truffle is known as one of the most luxurious ingredients in the world, it’s pungent flavour and complex aroma make it worth the endeavour to grow. Truffle is notoriously difficult to cultivate which is cause for its scarcity and expense, something the New Zealand Truffle Cooperative is trying to remedy. 

Chef Francis Motta (left) alongside a New Zealand Truffle Cooperative representative (right)

New Zealand’s truffle production has been sporadic and long in the making, it takes a minimum of 5 years to harvest truffles with peak harvests starting approximately after 11 years. It takes a lot of investment from the suppliers with only limited quantities produced each season. The Cooperative is linking suppliers throughout New Zealand in order to stabilise the price and increase the yield of truffle available for distribution. 

The result is two nights our students and guests won’t forget. With a delicious menu designed to bring out the best of our locally grown truffles and students eager to get hands on experience with this luxury ingredient, its needless to say the event was a huge success.

For more information on our Diplôme de Cuisine