Concrete Playground Meets Baduzzi Chef Ben Bayly

Big Day Out's Chow Town is for those of us who could never be drunk enough to enjoy flaccid chips or battered crap on a stick. With a name borrowed from sister festival Lollapalooza and a concept aligning fine dining with street food, Chow Town will offer festival-goers a food line-up to rival the musical one: hand-held versions of signature dishes crafted by New Zealand's most celebrated chefs.

Auckland promoter Campbell Smith says that Big Day Out "…has always been about experiencing new acts as well as favourite headliners. Now, we've taken the same approach with food."

Chow Town, located by the main bar and with a view of all stages, is dishing up gourmet grub from Mexico's Javier Carmona, Orleans' Sam Campbell, Masu's Nic Watt, Federal Delicatessen's Kyle Street, The Blue Breeze Inn's Che Barrington, and The Grove/Baduzzi's Ben Bayly.

Serving traditional Roman-American inspired dishes with a twist, North Wharf newbie Baduzzi shares Chow Town's philosophy of bringing truly great food to the people, of making gourmet fare "egalitarian and everywhere". The menu is a collaboration between Ben and owner Michael Dearth, who was raised in an Italian family in Connecticut and yearned to serve the food he'd grown up with.

"Michael dreamed up the concept 'Food of the People', and I was responsible for its execution", says Ben, who chats to me while deftly plating grilled trevally and doling out orders in The Grove's bustling kitchen. "We serve food that isn't homestyle by any means, but wholesome and approachable."

Michael's parents prepared meals faithful to their heritage in their new home, but what was on the table always depended on the produce and ingredients available at the time. Ben is also a staunch believer in sourcing locally and seasonally, and Italian cuisine – particularly from Sardinia and Sicily, areas close to the sea – is one of his favourites.

Together, they've created a menu that's fresh and modern, yet steeped in tradition (and decorated with sepia portraits of Michael's ancestors). There's a selection of handmade meatballs served sans spaghetti, hearty and delicious pasta dishes, and some of the best sweet treats in town.

The Wagyu meatballs with salsa verde and onion gravy will feature at Chow Town, alongside spit roasted pork sandwiches with olive salad and pickles, and strawberry crème fraiche sundaes with Pimms jelly and almond crumble. The latter offering will almost make you forget to care that Blur dropped out.

"I'm only dead set on seeing Snoop Lion anyway", Ben tells me with a shrug. "I love hip hop."

Ben admits to not watching the Food Channel ("That's for people like you", he says with a grin) and finds the burgeoning celebrity chef culture, where guys like him are coined "rock stars of the kitchen", a bit weird.

However, he does acknowledge the positive influence it's had on his restaurants' punters, who are more discerning and adventurous than they were a decade ago.

"There's been a huge boom in the number, variety and quality of restaurants and food-related media in New Zealand, so people have high expectations and are better educated", says Ben. "They want to be able to eat well wherever they go, which is what Chow Town is all about."

Ben is an expert multi-tasker, answering my questions carefully while sampling everything and checking each plate before it's whipped over the counter. The Grove's Monday night diners look happy and chill, quite ignorant of the organised chaos in the kitchen.

I ask him how he would describe New Zealand cuisine or food culture, and what the menus at his restaurants might feature in ten years' time.

"You'd only get a decent answer to that in about ten years' time…we don't have anything distinctive yet because we're such a young country", he says. "All of us chefs working now are the forebears of what New Zealand food and food culture will look like down the road. I predict that seafood will play a bigger part, as should the influence of immigrants. New Zealand has about the same number of immigrants per capita as Australia, but they haven't left their mark over here. Australia has a distinctive cuisine, very European, especially in Melbourne and Sydney. New Zealand has a sizeable Greek population, but where can you eat great Greek food? Where's our Chinatown?"

Chinatown may be non-existent for now, but BDO's Chow Town is sure to give you a unique and cheapish opportunity to sample what some of the city's best-loved restaurants have to offer. If you can't wait to taste Ben's meatballs, check out our review of Baduzzi before heading down or salivate over some sneaky snaps of Chow Town's menu here.