Offal Club at Hillside Kitchen

Overview

Technically, Thorndon's Hillside Kitchen & Cellar is located in the city. But it feels anything but. With its intimate 26-diner capacity and intrepid chefs willing to try anything, Hillside is the perfect place to celebrate quirky ingredients and push the envelope through their modern multicultural fare and focus on local produce.

Hence why Hillside is the host of the city's Offal Club, held monthly. Chef Asher Boote goes back to his childhood days growing up in the farming backblocks of Whanganui to try new things with ingredients often rejected by a lot of contemporary diners' tastes: offal. The ever-changing, experimental menu gives Asher a chance to play with brains, hearts, livers, kidneys — often the first elements of a beast to be discarded when it arrives in a typical restaurant kitchen.

The dishes will be contemporary, in Hillside's notable style and matched with a carefully selected line up of wines and beer. The aim of these evenings is to broaden your taste while trying dishes created by people whose tastes are widely known to be good. Hit dishes from past Offal Clubs have included duck fat bread pudding, duck fat caramel, apricot sorbet, pig skin pasta and lamb heart with 'things from the garden.'

It'll be offally good. Reservations are a must.