LONELY PLANET BEST in TRAVEL 2021

Wellington restaurant Hiakai singled out on Lonely Planet's Best in Travel list

17 NOVEMBER 2020

Wellington restaurant Hiakai has been named among Lonely Planet's top travel picks for 2021.

The restaurant from celebrated chef Monique Fiso was the only New Zealand spot to feature on the publisher’s Best in Travel list, which this year for the first time highlighted places, people and communities that are transforming the travel industry, instead of traditional destinations.

WINNER: Outstanding PEOPLE’S CHOICE 2020

HIAKAI has taken out the outstanding people’s choice award for 2020 at this year’s felix awards.

2 NOVEMBER 2020

Wellington’s best bars, cafes and restaurants have been honoured at the Felix Wellington Hospitality Awards. The awards, which recognise people and businesses who contributed to the dining, drinking and cafe scene in the capital, were announced at a ceremony at Te Papa Tongarewa on Sunday.

Wellington Gold Awards 2020

chef Monique Fiso was named the winner of the New Thinking Award sponsored by Massey University at the Wellington Gold Awards

22 OCTOBER 2020

The Wellington Gold Awards in association with The Dominion Post celebrate the excellence and enterprise of businesses in the Wellington Region.

Massey University’s College of Creative Arts has sponsored the New Thinking Award for the past five years, and Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Claire Robinson says the College was “delighted” to give the award to Monique Fiso.

MinDFOOD NZ JULY 2020

Aotearoa Food & Drink Special Edition

1 July 2020

HIAKAI Executive Chef, Monique Fiso, is gracing the cover of MiNDFOOD's latest issue.

“When deciding who to feature on the cover of this issue, talented chef Monique Fiso was an easy choice. The celebrated Wellington chef has re-opened her lauded restaurant, Hiakai, with a menu that she believes is the best of her career.”

forbes magazine’s 10 coolest places to eat in 2020

Hiakai named as one of forbes Magazine’s 10 coolest places to eat in 2020

dec. 6 2019

HIAKAI is proud to be named as one of Forbes Magazine’s 10 Coolest Places to Eat in 2020.

Now in it’s sixth year, the list is hand picked by a panel of international industry experts. Expert panelist, Matt Goulding, had this to say about HIAKAI:

“In Goulding’s view, “Chef Monique Fiso is a special talent, a woman with a vision for merging ancient Maori techniques and traditions with modernist touches and a boundless imagination.” (The name of her restaurant, Hiakai, means "hungry" in Maori.) “The result is one of the leading culinary lights in the southern hemisphere, a destination restaurant in a country better known for its movie scenes than its culinary scene.”

cgfa 2019: ‘best specialist restaurant’ and two Hats

nov. 28, 2019

HIAKAI Takes home ‘best specialist restaurant’ and two hats

The results are in for this years esteemed Cuisine Good Food Awards, and HIAKAI has been awarded ‘Best Specialist Restaurant’ in NZ as well as receiving not one but TWO hats. This is a brilliant result for our first year in operation as a bricks-and-mortar restaurant and we’re honored to be acknowledged on this list as being one of the best restaurants in New Zealand.

HIAKAI: world 50 best discovery

Hiakai listed among the world 50 best DISCOVERY Restaurants

nov. 20 2019

We are honored to be named as as one of the World 50 Best Discovery restaurants for 2020. As small restaurant in Wellington, New Zealand this is a massive achievement and we’re absolutely elated to be among such talented and inspiring company across the globe!

HIAKAI WINS THREE FELIX Hospitality AWARDS

Oct. 27, 2019

HIAKAI Takes home three felix Hospitality awards!

We are honored and elated to have taken home not one but three wins at this year’s Felix Hospitality Awards. HIAKAI won in the following categories:

• Outstanding Restaurant of the Year: HIAKAI

• Outstanding Chef of the Year: Monique Fiso, HIAKAI Executive Chef

• Emerging Chef of the Year: Elton Song, HIAKAI Chef de Partie

We’d like to thank everyone who nominated and voted for HIAKAI for this year’s Felix Awards. We are humbled by the support of our guests and peers and look forward to continuing to strive for excellence in the New Zealand hospitality industry for many years to come.

HIAKAI: the world’s 100 greatest places of 2019

TIME MAGAZINE
AUG. 23, 2019

hiakai has been named by time magazine as one of the WORLD’s 100 greatest places of 2019

Hiakai is thrilled to be named by TIME Magazine as one of the World’s 100 Greatest Places of 2019!

TIME solicited nominations across a variety of categories—including museums, parks, restaurants, and hotels—from our editors and correspondents around the world as well as industry experts. Then we evaluated each one based on key factors, including quality, originality, sustainability, innovation and influence.

The result: 100 new and newly noteworthy destinations to experience across the worlds.

Hiakai review: Monique Fiso’s food is a loving, delicious tribute to Aotearoa

The spinoff
AUG. 23, 2019

Simon Day dined alone at Monique Fiso’s Wellington restaurant Hiakai, and discovered it was the perfect way to appreciate the meaning of this special food

“The meal took me on a journey through summer holidays at the beach, open-fire barbecues, fishing with my father, spooning the top layer of Milo straight into my mouth, hiking in the bush in the rain, school lunches…”

Chef Monique Fiso to star alongside chef Gordon Ramsay on National Geographic’s New “Uncharted” Series.

national GEOGRAPHIC
july. 9, 2019

GORDON RAMSAY EXPLORES NEW ZEALAND’S RUGGED SOUTH

Slashing his way through the lush New Zealand forest with a machete, Gordon Ramsay steps between emerald ferns and a tangled wall of vines. “This is not like a supermarket aisle,” he says, but he doesn’t have to fend for himself in determining which plants are merely hurdles and which can be harvested to add to a meal. Chef Monique Fiso leads the way and points out edible wild plants, including peppery horopito, asparagus-tasting pirita (supplejack) and sweet purple fuchsia berries…

Celebrity chef Monique Fiso & the Kiwi food trends gaining international acclaim

The listener nz
june. 13, 2019

stars of our kai

Celebrity chef Monique Fiso has starred in a top US cooking show and opened a new restaurant in Wellington to prove there’s more to Māori food than hāngi. She’s just one of the talented chefs pushing the boundaries of New Zealand cuisine…

EATER USA

Eater.com
FEB. 27, 2019

The New Zealand Chef Bringing Māori Ingredients to the Fine Dining Stage. At Hiakai, Monique Fiso has embarked on a mission to make native New Zealand food “something that we should be proud of”.

The project nz

Three NOW
FEB. 21, 2019

Jesse Mulligan of The Project NZ visits Chef Monique Fiso of Hiakai in Wellington to talk about the future of NZ cuisine and the foraged bush ingredients she uses in her dishes.

Netflix series, new restaurant - it's a big day for chef Monique Fiso

The NZ Herald
nov. 21, 2018

Over the same 24-hour period she opens her new restaurant, Hiakai, in Mt Cook, and appears in the freshly dropped new mega epic Netflix chef competition Final Table.

Much more lies behind both than you'd imagine.

Is this new zealand’s most exciting chef?

The Spinoff
oct. 29, 2018

No-nonsense 31-year-old Māori/Samoan woman Monique Fiso is behind one of the most anticipated restaurant openings in years. This is food the likes of which New Zealand has never seen — innovative, sophisticated, thoroughly modern cooking with indigenous ingredients at its heart. 

Get ready, Wellington.

Cuisine Good Food Awards 2018: New Zealand's best chefs and restaurants

STUFF NZ
oct. 16, 2018

The best in New Zealand's restaurant scene have been announced.

A big winner on the night was Monique Fiso, the chef renowned for creating Michelin-style Māori cuisine.

MĀori Cuisine champion and innovator to be honoured at MOTAT

MOTAT
oct. 18, 2018

Monique Fiso – renowned chef and Māori cuisine champion will be onsite at the Museum of Transport & Technology (MOTAT) in Auckland this coming Monday to oversee the final installation of an exhibit honouring her Hiakai cuisine initiative. With the launch of her Wellington restaurant fast approaching, MOTAT is justifiably thrilled to have secured Monique’s time and attention to take part in this upcoming exhibition – The Innovators.

Māori culinary mātauranga feature at MOTAT Innovations Exhibition

Te Karere
oct. 18, 2018

Māori cuisine and traditional cooking methods were on the menu at MOTAT's Innovations Exhibition. Whatitiri Te Wake - Te Karere reports on one young woman's quest to perfect fine Māori cuisine using traditional cooking methods.

The Chefs Redefining Polynesian Cuisine

NY Times
Aug. 6, 2018

THE KAWAKAWA LEAVES are dark as jade and riddled with holes, the telltale bites of looper moth caterpillars. In another kitchen they might be thought compromised and tossed aside, but to Monique Fiso, a New Zealand chef of Māori -Samoan heritage, they are taonga, or treasure. According to Maori herbal medicine, the more holes, the better — because caterpillars choose only the finest leaves to feast on.

Chef Monique Fiso's Hiakai Pop-Up Is Set To Get A Permanent Home

viva nz
jul. 20, 2018

It’s been almost two years since chef Monique Fiso started her Hiakai pop-ups, taking over restaurant kitchens with menus that champion Maori cuisine and indigenous ingredients.
At the time, she didn’t know if there was even an appetite for her idea, but the project is gaining more momentum than ever.

Finding My soul Food
Cuisine Magazine Review of Hiakai by Jonny Schwass

Stuff NZ
JUN. 20, 2017

Often a meal can be more than dinner with friends and family. It can be more than a plate of food, some polite conversation about the achievements of the day and your daily dose of sustenance. Once in a while a plate of food, or in the case of my recent experience at Hiakai at The Food Farm, a number of carefully considered and collected plates of food, can be an uplifting and humanising experience.

Sunday – TOP CHEF MONIQUE

TVNZ
JUN. 10, 2018

She was once ashamed to be Maori so it’s ironic that she's now celebrating Maori cuisine. Chef Monique Fiso made a name for herself in NYC, working in Michelin-star restaurants. But the notoriously tough cooking world resulted in Monique battling anxiety, drugs and alcohol. With her trademark determination she decided to make a shift and came home to discover a new style of cooking, and a new side to herself.

Jonathan Gold's top dishes from 31 days of great chefs around L.A. -
Potatoes cooked in earth

LA Times
JUN. 8, 2018

Monique Fiso is a young chef of Maori heritage who is becoming famous in New Zealand for her exploration of local wild plants and her devotion to traditional hangi.
The food chatterers expect her to join the top rank of chefs after her restaurant in the capital city of Wellington opens this fall.

Monique fiso by Stone Soup films

Stone Soup
mar. 26, 2018

Monique Fiso’s Hiakai project is currently taking on the world. We are very proud to have been there to document the beginning, to give people a glimpse into  Monique’s graft and determination and to give her the space to tell her story.

Into The Heart of The Earth
New Zealand’s chef Monique Fiso on why her dinners make people cry.

Chefsfeed
mar. 8, 2018

When you begin to dig up a hangi pit, the thing that hits you after the first few shovels of dirt is the smell.
It’s the scent of altered earth, of flavor trapped in a subterranean oven, traveling upwards on tendrils, then billows, of steam. The further you go, the stronger it gets.