Stories

Whether for work or play, winter brings a resurgence of some old favourites in menswear. Cutler & Co.’s Liam Strachan shares his tips for a stylish season. As we dress up in the cooler months, the strong trends emerging all involve knitwear, bold prints and old-fashioned textures such as corduroy making a welcome return. With a nature-inspired palette of deep greens, camel and beige tones set to a backdrop of soft blacks and navies, this is definitely the time to start exploring with tonal but mismatched layers. Here are our tips to dress for the season: Incorporate some corduroy into your wardrobe. Start with a casual shirt or pants, or go bold with a cord jacket in camel. Experiment with different wales (sizes) of cord for different looks. Big prints are back! Try wearing a print shirt in darker hues or layered under a jersey as a subtle nod to this...

The hop vine flowers only once a year, meaning brewers have only one chance to use them fresh in a brew before they get dried for storage. Ralph Bungard explains. Hops have been an integral part of most beer styles now for centuries, with the first use recorded as far back as the 9th Century. Before that, a combination of herbs such as dandelion, horehound, marigold and burdock, among others, made up a “gruit” that was used to bitter beer and prevent spoiling – just as modern hops do now. Since hops became the go-to herb for (most!) brewers they have spread around the globe and become the focus of intense plant-breeding programmes designed to intensify and diversify the flavour characteristics they impart to beer. When brewers talk about hops, they are more specifically talking about the female flowers of the hop vine. The hop vine dies down in the winter...

Try making delicious plant-based goodness the star of your dinner plate and you’ll soon feel the positive effects. A wholefoods and plant-based diet is full of health benefits and will have you feeling fab, but not everyone is ready to commit to an entirely plant-based regime. Adding smoothies to your daily routine is a simple way to up your plant intake and a great way to get fussy kids to indulge in greenery. A smoothie packed with berries can have a handful or two of spinach thrown in that you won’t be able to taste over all the sweet flavours. Eating seasonally is a great way to help your hip pocket and absorb the most out of fruit and veges. Autumn has a ton of healthy produce in season including leeks, courgettes and broccoli. Wholefoods are key – these are plant foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined...

Shifting from Hawke’s Bay to Pegasus Bay and the Waipara Valley has brought a whole bunch of new local flavours to the dishes of chef Jackson Smith. Welcome to Canterbury. What convinced you to make the move? The job at Pegasus Bay was an opportunity to work in a place that I had a lot of respect for, with seriously amazing wine, great people, great fun, great vibe. It’s all great. What has pleasantly surprised you about your new home? The friendliness and hospitality of everyone we have met in the area, the local food scene, the awesome country schools, affordable real estate and the Christchurch City rebuild, with the cool niche places opening everywhere. What are you missing (if anything) about Hawke’s Bay? The many beautiful beaches, friends and family. Has the move to North Canterbury and Pegasus Bay influenced your cuisine at all? 100 percent – how could moving...

A gourmet weekend getaway to Otahuna Lodge combines luxury and learning, with chef Jimmy McIntyre sharing culinary secrets and the guests getting to sample the results in a deliciously decadent degustation dinner. Executive chef Jimmy McIntyre makes it look easy as he cranks the handle on the pasta machine and turns the dough for his roast pumpkin and goat cheese tortellini into a flat sheet. The secret, he tells the guests gathered in his kitchen at Otahuna Lodge, is in the ingredients and the preparation – one egg per 100g of powder-fine double-0 flour (“It’s crucial to weigh it out”), kneaded then rested for at least an hour, to ensure the flour is sufficiently hydrated. The beautifully restored Otahuna Lodge, nestled at the base of the Port Hills in Tai Tapu, makes the perfect venue for a weekend of luxury. Getting there was pretty cool too, thanks to the nifty MINI...

Here at Cityscape, we are all about getting you off the couch and out and about in our wonderful city, whether you're into the arts, events, culture, great food, cheap eats, cool bars or anything in between. But with many events being cancelled and people becoming wary of attending large gatherings, we realise it might not always be possible to get out and about as much as we would like. In times like this, following the 5 Ways to Wellbeing becomes a challenge but it also becomes even more important. Finding ways to continue to Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give will help us get to the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic in the best shape possible. Things have changed though, and in response we will be focusing on a new way to experience the city. We're still going to tell you about the best events that...

Tom Riley and Chris Kappely are at the helm of Green Dinner Table, a plant-based subscription box that brings local produce direct to your door. They tell Cityscape about their passion for healthy and sustainable food. What is the vision behind Green Dinner Table? How do you differ from other food subscription services? T: The vision was to show people how eating a plant-based diet can be delicious and simple – you will not miss the meat at all – and to teach people new cooking techniques that aren’t based around a piece of protein in the centre of the dish. This is how conventional cooking has worked for so long, but with plant-based cooking you’re focusing on the individual ingredients more. C: We differ because we’re a 100% plant-based service and don’t have to contribute to the harming of animals. We strive towards sustainability and looking after the environment and...

Christchurch will finally get to hear Julia Deans perform her Joni Mitchell tribute show, Both Sides Now, at the Jazz & Cabaret Festival. Julia tells Cityscape how the show came together, and how she prepares for a gig. What are your favourite Joni Mitchell songs and why? I’d have to say ‘Amelia’, as it’s the song that really opened my mind to the incisive honesty of Joni’s writing. When did you discover her music? About a week after Shane Bosher, producer of Both Sides Now, asked me if I’d be interested in doing the show in 2013. I’d somehow managed to avoid Joni Mitchell’s music my entire life. What were the challenges in taking on her songs? Her idiosyncratic phrasing and the MOUNTAIN of lyrics to remember! How did those challenges compare with your shows about Bowie, Brel and Billie Holiday? Every show has had its own challenges as each of...

The Goddess & The Saint: Juno gin No matter how wild or worldly life might get, this divine twist on the classic G&T will ensure some heavenly moments. Ingredients 15ml St Germain Elderflower Liqueur30ml Juno Gin Extra Fine45ml tonic (or more to taste)wedges of lime MethodSqueeze and drop the lime into a glass. Add gin and St Germain. Top with tonic, then ice. Stir and add garnish.   Curious 75: Curiosity Gin One of our favourites is still the first we ever developed for our own gin. It’s the Curious 75, a version of the classic French 75 using Curiosity Gin Recipe #23. Ingredients 30ml Curiosity Recipe #23 Gin15ml sugar syrup15ml lemon juicedash orange bitterssparkling roséorange peel for garnish Method Pour all ingredients except the sparkling rosé into a shaker over ice. Shake together and strain into a chilled coupé glass or champagne flute (150ml). Top up with the rosé.  ...

Get your diaries out as we look ahead to some sumptuous shows set to light up the city’s stages in 2020. Whether you’re after a laugh, thrilling theatre to the fringe and back or a musical spectacular, Christchurch is a hotspot for culture vultures. There’s nearly always something worth checking out somewhere on the city’s cultural scene. Comedy, dance, theatre, musical performances from pop to classical, and film from local and international artists are all well represented throughout the year. Among the highlights to come are a Showbiz Christchurch production of My Fair Lady that places Eliza the flower seller firmly in the #MeToo moment; and the songs and style of Tina Turner come to life on the Isaac Theatre Royal stage with TINA: Simply the Best. Add to that the magic of NZ Opera and the Royal New Zealand Ballet and there’s still plenty to keep our cultural hearts beating...

What is your role as interim artistic director? What is your day like? I oversee and manage all the art. I look at what plays we are going to do, when, how and who should do them. I spend my days doing a lot of talking! As theatre makers we bring together artists with different skills who collaborate to make something bigger than the sum of its parts. I make sure the right people with the right skills are supported to create magic. Can you give us an overview of the direction The Court Theatre will take under your leadership? No, I can’t. I can tell you that what we are doing now is starting to talk more and ask more questions. Of ourselves, our teams and our community. This theatre is here for Canterbury, to enliven the city. I think people already know what they want from their theatre company,...

Turning a Shakespeare classic into a contemporary Kiwi comedy makes for a lot of fun at The Court Theatre. Characters from one of Shakespeare’s most loved plays go for a walk in the woods and end up in modern-day New Zealand – that’s the unlikely premise for Lysander’s Aunty, the next production at The Court Theatre. Lysander is one of four lovers in the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His aunt gets only a fleeting mention at the start of the play as being someone who can help Lysander and his lover Hermia elope. They set off to find her but are immediately distracted from this quest and the aunt is never mentioned again. For writer Ralph McCubbin Howell, filling in the aunt’s story was too great a temptation. Who is this law-snubbing, free-loving aunty? Why is she living remotely in the woods? And what’s she doing helping runaway lovers...

Orana Wildlife Park is getting on board with Whio Awareness Month – these delightful ducks are one of the most endangered waterfowl, and are found only in New Zealand. The awareness month is a DOC/Genesis initiative and provides an opportunity to highlight the plight of these feathered friends. The species is classified as nationally vulnerable and numbers are sitting at fewer than 3,000. These ducks have a fleshy lip on their bill that protects them when hunting for insects on rocks, and the greatest risk to them is introduced animals such as stoats. The Whio is one of the few waterfowl that live year-round on fast-flowing rivers, and they’re an important indicator of healthy rivers and streams. Orana Wildlife Park is involved in the breed-for-release programme for the South Island. The programme involves breeding the ducks and releasing the ducklings on the West Coast. You can visit the cute ducks at...

Naming his cosy Christchurch bar gin gin. makes it clear where Luke Dawkins’ affections lie. He tells Cityscape his ideal food matches, and his recipe for a perfect martini. What is the exciting news for your bar? A new era! We're moving from Victoria Street to a beautiful heritage building in New Regent Street. Why gin? Gin is the thing right now, with global growth in its category. Plus it is fun to work with as there are so many flavour combinations, not to mention the fun tonics to go with them! Why do you think gin has come back into favour so much? I think the younger generations have given it a little buzz again, along with social media. That has caused a knock-on effect and a renaissance among the older generations, who have always known of it. What do you see as the interesting trends in gin? More and...

Making the base alcohol from scratch sets Peter Hall apart from many other artisan gin makers. He tells Cityscape how a talk among friends turned into a plan to set up a small still and give it a go. Tell us what is special and different about your distillery? We make our own alcohol from scratch. Many competitors buy in whey alcohol or neutral spirit and further distil. I don’t think you can truly say your customer is getting a ‘grain to glass experience’ if you are not making your own alcohol using grain. Why gin? How did you get interested in making it? It grew out of a discussion with friends during a long weekend in 2016 spent at Bannockburn in Central Otago. My partner Marie is Irish-born and for a reason known only to her she turned the discussion from Felton Road pinot noir (the drink of choice that...

Having been a fan of gin all her adult life, Jo James needed little encouragement to try her hand at distilling it. She tells Cityscape about new flavours she is working on, and her favourite gin and food matches. Tell us what is special and different about your distillery? It’s family-owned and operated, located in New Plymouth, and proudly supported by the people of Taranaki. We designed and built our 400-litre copper still locally and are working with local horticulturalists and Massey University to grow the essential gin botanicals here in New Zealand. We are seeing international recognition for our signature gin, Juno Extra Fine, which uses these locally grown botanicals and has won seven international awards. Why gin? How did you get interested in making it? I have loved gin all my adult life – and the process of distillation was part of the degrees that Dave and I did....

Gin is back in vogue, and with such a variety it’s easy to see why. Deriving its predominant flavour from juniper berries, gin dates as far back as 1688 England, and was a popular cocktail option in the US during Prohibition. Today, we see brands experimenting with flavours including native New Zealand botanicals, and you can even find a vegemite and buttered toast-flavoured drop, courtesy of Archie Rose Distilling Co in Sydney. Known once as mother’s ruin, this modern tipple’s resurgence has been credited to a rise in the popularity of cocktails, the endless flavour combinations available, a number of moody boudoir-style bars popping up, including Christchurch’s very own gin gin, and festivals such as Gindulgence. Cityscape catches up with the crème de la crème of the city’s ginthusiasts. They share with us their best cocktail recipes, why gin has come back in fashion, what the future holds and the perfect...

It’s one of the most popular 2020 buzzword ingredients around anti-ageing, but how does collagen really work? Collagen is a protein that already exists in our body – it gives structure and strength to our skin, bones and muscles. Despite this, the natural production of collagen in our body slows down with age, illness or lifestyle factors. This is when wrinkles, weak joints, brittle nails and lacklustre hair begin to emerge. Thankfully, there are now several collagen-boosting products available to naturally improve our skin, hair and body. Powdered collagen is full of energy-boosting amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, and helps to increase skin strength and elasticity for plumper, younger-looking skin, as well as helping with joint, muscle and bone health. However, not all collagen powder is created equal, and you’ll want to ensure you’re consuming amounts that will actually make a difference. Kiki Health Marine Collagen Beauty...