Air New Zealand celebrates Māori New Year with Matariki menu in lounges
Air New Zealand lounge at ZQN
Passengers travelling with Air New Zealand will have a chance to celebrate Matariki 2024 with a feast in select lounges from Thursday, June 27 to Wednesday, July 3.
Honouring the theme "Matariki Heri Kai - the feast of Matariki", the available dishes will draw inspiration from traditional Māori cuisine. These will be served to passengers in Air New Zealand’s Auckland (AKL), Wellington (WLG), Christchurch (CHC) and Queenstown (ZQN) lounges.
The celebratory selection will include roasted sweetcorn chowder, rēwena bread, apple cider pork and cabbage with puha pesto and charred sweet potatoes with honey. Cured salmon on seeded lavosh will also be served as a kaimoana (seafood) treat.
Travellers who miss out on the Matariki menu will still be able to enjoy seasonal flavours featured in the airline's new winter lounge menu.
Air New Zealand refreshed its lounge offerings this month, with highlights including pork belly with spiced plum sauce, roasted kumara, carrots and parsnips with tahini dressing, spiced pumpkin soup and potato gnocchi with pumpkin creme sauce.
The lounges’ expanded breakfast line-up includes veal sausage, skillet sweet potato hash, and bagels with raspberry jam, cream cheese and Biscoff spread.
Kylie McGillivray-Brown, General Manager Customer Experience, Air New Zealand, said the airline updates its lounge menus every few months to showcase the best of what is available each season.
"We also take customer feedback into account when reviewing our menus. For example, our lounge customers told us they wanted more options to customize their dishes, so we're now offering more condiments like hot chili sauce, harissa and mint yogurt dressing,” she added.
"As much as our lounge customers love variety, it's also clear they have their firm favourites - we go through 3800kg of cheese and 5500 boxes of crackers a month, so you can rest assured the cheese board won't be going anywhere!"
