New Zealand Lodge Features Manuka Honey Aviaries

Iconic Lodge in NZ Introduces New ‘Culinary Safari’

An iconic wilderness lodge in New Zealand that is known for luxury has recently introduced a new food experience called “The Estate to Plate Safari.” Rotorua’s Treetops Estate is offering guests a personal and unique encounter with gamekeepers and specialist chefs that focuses on cuisine that is created from the lodge’s 100 percent organic and pesticide free grown food and estate-reared meat. Not only is the wilderness on the plate, it is also in the overall dining experience that features modern flavors.

According to RobbReport.com, the “Estate to Plate” experience begins with a four-wheel drive safari tour of the Treetop’s kitchen gardens from where all of their ingredients are collected. This garden is home to many indigenous and heritage vegetables including native spinach, fresh turmeric, native cress, wasabi, kumara (sweet potato) and a great number of different fruit trees. Visitors on the tour are welcome to sample produce from the garden by picking, conservatively, what they would like to taste.

In addition to having fresh fruits and vegetables from the kitchen garden, the lodge also features their own, on-site Manuka honey aviaries which are responsible for producing wild honey. This honey has exceptional flavor that is used in some of the dishes that are featured. From the aviaries, the tour moves to the lodge’s 2500-acre property where guests will get to see some local wildlife. Water buffalo and wild deer share this space with many other animals including sheep, wild pigs, rabbits, partridge, sheep, ducks and geese as well as brown and rainbow trout.

The tour comes to an end and gives guests the option of choosing a half-day Wild Food Cooking School which begins by foraging for ingredients within the lodge’s 800 year old forests. In the heart of the estate, the guests will also be able to experience an actual, living Maori culture during a one hour long walk in which they will look for native bush delicacies such as kawakawa leaf, herbs and horopito. These ingredients are taken back to the kitchen where five star chefs create a memorable feast.

Rotorua’s Treetops Estate and Lodge offers many adventurous activities that the whole family can enjoy, including practical classes in the Maori arts, junior cooking classes, mountain biking, helicopter tours, hiking trails and photography safaris around the lodge’s many acres of land. Those guests who are looking for relaxation and the ability to get away from the world and back into nature will definitely find something they love at the Treetops Estate and Lodge.