So just to start off with, when you think about New Zealand cuisine, what you want to represent, what you want to make, what does that mean to you?

We're just a particular way of cooking is the best way I'd describe it.

It's because we have such a great immigrant population and the country itself is very young.

We have a fantastic style and way of cooking that includes a lot of things.

We're a very British country in our origin, but our food is not British by any stretch of imagination.

We're in the South Pacific region.

We've got a huge Polynesian influence, massive amount of subcontinent, so India and Pakistan, Southeast Asia, so Thai.

Can we still make, can we make it good enough here? Or is there just nothing truly like what it tastes like back home?

Mm-hmm.

Um, I did maths at school.

We put an S on the end of math, by the way, maths.

And, uh, I was really good at it.

And then by my last year of high school, I was like, "Oh, this is kind of boring." And everything had been set up to go towards engineering at that point.

I was like, "I'm good at maths.

This is gonna be great." And then I sort of had to have big question mark, like what, what is the plan? And so, I got...

Mm-hmm