International Special Awards 2022EstablishmentInternational selection

Hiakai

Monique Fiso

Wellington, New Zealand

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Hidden Gem Awards

Restaurants worth going an extra mile for

Maori cuisine. Hiakai serves the cuisine of New Zealand’s indigenous people, though they call their home Aotearoa. As a child, chef Monique Fiso learned to cook with her Samoan grandmother, but what she turns out today has evolved far from those dishes. Though Fiso takes the core ingredients and techniques from her homeland, such as traditional cooking methods like the hāngi “earth oven”, the rest is all hers. You might say she is developing a modern version of Maori cooking.