Hiakai: Modern Maori Cuisine is a breathtaking account of Māori food - its traditions, ingredients and tikanga - from our brightest culinary star.

Monique Fiso is a modern-day food warrior, taking Māori cuisine to the world. After years overseas in Michelin-star restaurants, Monique returned to Aotearoa to begin Hiakai, an innovative pop-up venture that’s now a revered, award-winning restaurant in Wellington.

Monique has also gone on to feature on Netflix’s ‘The Final Table’, alongside 19 other international chefs, with Hiakai being lauded by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Forbes and TIME magazine, which named Hiakai in 2019 as one of the ‘100 Greatest Places’ in the world.

This book is just as unforgettable: ranging between history, tradition and tikanga, as well as Monique’s personal journey of self-discovery, it tells the story of kai Māori, provides foraging and usage notes, an illustrated ingredient directory, and over 30 breathtaking recipes that give this ancient knowledge new life.

Hiakai offers up food to behold, to savour, to celebrate.

• Written by Monique Fiso
• 272 pages
• Hardback book
• ISBN: 9780143772606

Monique Fiso (Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Ruanui) was born and bred in Porirua.

Starting with an after-school job as a sandwich hand at just 14, Fiso trained at the Wellington Institute of Technology while working the kitchen at Martin Bosley’s, before moving on to an array of renowned restaurants overseas.

She returned to New Zealand in 2016 and began the pop-up dining series called Hiakai, which evolved into the Wellington-based restaurant that’s taken the New Zealand food scene by storm.

Hiakai: Modern Maori Cuisine is also available for purchase in store at Wellington Museum.