Feijoa scholar Kate Evans reviews the dish everybody raves about at Metro’s 2024 restaurant of the year, Forest.
People have been telling me I need to try the deep-fried feijoa dessert at Forest for about three years now. I’m embarrassed it took me this long, but it takes a lot to get me over the Divvy from Raglan and up to the Big Smoke. This year, though, I was determined not to let feijoa season pass me by without making it through the warm wooden doors of chef Plabita Florence and host Kate Underwood’s tiny Dominion Road restaurant and wrapping my face around their storied creation.
After all, I am uniquely qualified to write this review. Not only am I New Zealand’s reigning feijoa queen (slash nerd) and author of the only recent book about feijoas, I also have form as a discerning dessert devotee – in 2019, I was a celebrity judge of the feijoa dessert competition at the Festival of the Feijoa in Tibasosa, Colombia.
So this week, I took fellow feijoa fanatic and writer Rebekah White along with me to help analyse what’s arguably the most famous dish at Metro’s 2024 Restaurant of the Year.
It arrived in shades of beige: a pale speckled blob on a lava-mountain the colour of a cup of tea with milk. The blob, of course, was the starring feijoa, rolled in feijoa sherbet made from the fruit’s own peeled and dehydrated skins.
I dipped my finger in and licked the green-and-white dust. It made my mouth tingle, and reminded me of being a kid, making homemade sherbet (I was a sugar-deprived child not allowed to buy lollies from the general store). “I like how the sherbet makes it look the consistency of bach walls,” said Rebekah.
Feijoas, as everyone knows, are already massively nostalgic. But by covering them in a thin batter and frying them to a perfect crisp with a jammified melted centre, Forest has supercharged the nostalgia. It brings to mind a dairy donut, or the most delicious pineapple fritter from the fish and chip shop you’ve ever had, but feijoa flavoured.
Rebekah had started to dig in. “Are you crying?” I asked. She didn’t answer, eventually muttering “it’s so good” though her spoon. “Bury me in sherbet feijoa dust.”
I bent my head to sniff the bowl. The spicy, homely scent was reminiscent of feijoa crumble – the most traditional feijoa-based New Zealand dessert, and one I prepared in a cooking demonstration at the Festival of the Feijoa. (The Colombians thought pairing feijoas with apples was weird.)
I took my first proper bite, and closed my eyes. The dish might be beige – earthy, let’s say – but appearances aren’t really important here. Like the humble feijoa itself, this is an unshowy dessert where texture and flavour star: the crisp crunch of the batter, the jelly-like feijoa, the unmistakable bergamot notes of the custard.
Because yes, the custard. I haven’t even told you about the custard! Under the deep fried feijoa is a sort of sticky gingery cake, smothered in thick, honey-coloured Earl Grey oat milk custard (the whole dish is invisibly, indiscernibly vegan). Together, cake and custard evoke yet another nostalgic moment—gingernut dunked in an afternoon cuppa.
That’s another reason for the crumble vibes, Rebekah said. “I would often put ginger in my feijoa crumble. It feels like a very classic pairing.” It’s not too sweet, either, she pointed out. “It’s so nice to have a dessert that’s not too sweet and not too creamy and not too chocolatey.”
I’m perhaps most impressed by the fact the chefs have managed to select a single perfect feijoa for each serving, too – just on the cusp of ripeness, neither sour nor overly perfumed, and certainly no bonus guava moths. The acidity of the skin-sherbet restores the fresh feijoa flavour and aroma, too, that are usually somewhat lost when you cook the things.
Plabita Florence escaped the kitchen and came over briefly to chat – the 17-seat restaurant was full, and they were down a dishwasher. The dish has evolved since she first served barbecued feijoas with cauliflower Earl Grey ice cream a few years ago, she said. “That was way too weird.”
It’s pretty much perfect now, I suggested. Florence and Rebekah reckoned the sprinkled sherbet tastes like sour feijoa lollies. “I find I often make things that taste like lollies, because I’m trying to use all the peels in it,” Plabita said – Forest aims to be as low-waste as possible. It suddenly dawned on me that I’d somehow never had a sour feijoa lolly.
Rebekah was appalled. “There’s a dairy next door,” said Plabita. “You have to go straight there after this.” (We did. I ate one. It was fine.)
Plabita excused herself, and by the time we’d licked our plates clean (OK that was just me, Rebekah was civilised) I was convinced that this warm hug of an eating experience should be our national dessert. It’s laden with classic Kiwiana flavours – feijoas, gingernuts, Earl Grey tea, pineapple fritters, dairy donuts, paper-bag sherbet, bach walls – and it’s damned delicious.
Get yourself there before the season is out.
