POSTPONED: Farm Dinners

Overview

Grey Lynn's beloved organic community farm Kelmarna Gardens is inviting food lovers to enjoy a pop-up farm-to-table dining experience this February. The idea behind the Farm Dinners series is to celebrate the bounty of the land, bringing diners closer to food than ever. Kelmarna's favourite chefs will be invited to draw on the seasonal harvest producing a menu inspired by garden's produce.

After sell-out nights in 2019 and 2020, the series is expanding to four nights in 2021, from Wednesday, 17 to Saturday, 20 February. Chef Plabita Florence of plant-based eatery Forest will present a set five-course menu (with both vegan and vegetarian options) using produce from Kelmarna's 1.7 hectares of gardens and food forest, with other ingredients sourced locally and sustainably.

The philosophy of Forest is to use wild plants that are literally overgrown throughout the city and to utilise underrated parts of produce that are normally destined for the bin. Pop-ups have seen Florence whip up yams with spicy sauce made from pickled chillies and cauliflower stalks, popped barley and wild onion flowers; purple kumara gnocchi with black garlic broth, confit leek and crispy carrot skin; and smoked beets with nasturtium mustard, silverbeet stalk pickles and sauerkraut sourdough.