This week’s small pleasures #361 or a weekend away part 1

With longer days and the thoughts of summer approaching, we decided to have a short weekend away over the Remutaka Hills in Martinborough. Regular readers will know we go over there at regular intervals, but this time we decided to stay over for a couple of nights to make the most of this lovely part of the country.

We started off with a short stop in Greytown, having lunch at Main Street Deli Cafe, with me opting for the Scandi inspired prawn and egg toast which was delicious, and Karl a very good burger. Full of food, we had a nice walk around the town which is full of lovely little shops, including The Village Bookshop.

We also spotted lots of lavender and alstromeria, adding joy and colour to what was a rather grey morning.

As we couldn’t pick up the keys to our Airbnb until 2pm, we stopped off at a couple of wineries. Schubert Wines is one of our favourite to visit, and we picked up a bottle of shiraz and one of their dessert wines for our Christmas table.

We also stopped off at the relatively newly opened The Runholder, which is now home to Martinborough Vineyard, Te Kairanga Wines and soon also to local distillery, Lighthouse Gin. There is a restaurant, tasting room and cellar door offering lunch and wine and gin tastings. It is in a beautiful setting (see below and in the featured image), and we really need to get back there for a long and leisurely lunch some day. Below you can see some of the botanicals that go into the flavouring of the gin as well as the selection of wines.

The sun had come out by the time we reached Martinborough, and we settled in to our apartment situated in the town centre opposite The Martinborough Hotel. If you scroll down their home page, you can see the layout of the town, which is designed around the Union Jack flag. The street names called after places the town’s founder, John Martin, had visited (eg Dublin Street, New York Street).

We had dinner at the newly opened Nära, situated on Memorial Square. The evening menu is a tapas style one, with just a few well chosen dishes from which to select. We ordered the chargrilled asparagus with romesco sauce, dukkah and yuzu oil, Scotch filet tacos with chimichurri mayonnaise, some absolutely amazing salt and pepper calamari with Thai green peppercorn and ginger sauce (so tender and full of flavour) and the spiced lamb sliders with tzatziki, rocket and a perfect little pickle. The food was excellent, and we must try lunch there on our next visit.

And that was Friday…what we did on Saturday coming tomorrow!

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.

You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis. If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com or lofgren@thistlesandkiwis.com