Hector's Restaurant - CLOSED

Overview

It’s not often a fine-dining or corporate establishment chooses to deviate from the norm, and Hector’s Restaurant deserves strong praise for doing just that.

Located inside the Heritage Hotel off Queen Street, Hector's Restaurant have taken the initiative and gone full-speed ahead in a health-conscious direction - having a daily raw breakfast/juice bar and a Friday-only raw seasonal luncheon menu that is completely plant-based thus suitable for vegan and vegetarians or those simply looking for an ultra-healthy (and delicious) choice. The raw breakfast bar is a nice touch, adding simple and easy raw juices and menu choices to start the day, but the Friday luncheon is there they really shine.

The option is part of the hotel’s ‘square meal’ range comprising a delicious three-course tasting platter that changes seasonally – a current example including a starter of chilled soup of tomato essence accompanied by an avocado asparagus salad with black garlic on cashew ‘parmesan’ toast. The main is blue agave glazed zucchini blossom with buckwheat cauliflower couscous and red pepper sauce. Following is a dessert of carrot and apple cake, coconut ‘cream cheese’ and strawberries. It’s not hard to see why we’re fans.

Natural unprocessed and uncooked plant foods are the key component for the raw diet. Nothing is cooked above 41 degrees celsius as doing so is believed to destroy valuable enzymes for digestion and diminish nutritional value in the food.

“We have used a number of techniques such as preserving, pickling, compression, dehydration and sprouting to enhance the flavours of the raw ingredients. We have sourced raw virgin oils such as olive and coconut. We sprout and grow our own grains and seeds which are used in a number of the dishes,” says Heritage Auckland’s executive chef Jinu Abraham.

Sitting at the base of a seven-story atrium and surrounded by palms, Hector's is literally an undiscovered oasis of health and delight that serves up complex fine-dining dishes that have to be experienced to be believed.