Shop Eight Food and Wine, Christchurch, New Zealand

It must take guts to open a restaurant in Christchurch. Four years after the devastating earthquake that demolished much of the historic city centre it still looks like a war zone in places with yawning gaps where local landmarks once were.

Why, you wonder, do they not do more to get the country’s second biggest city back on its feet again? Apparently it’s complicated. Records indicate the region is still earthquake prone (not that that’s unusual for New Zealand) and businesses have got used to operating in the suburbs. Bureaucracy moves slowly.

But there were signs on a summer’s evening on my recent trip that the heart is returning to the city: a busy bike mending project, wasteland turned into urban gardens, a group of kids practising their dance moves in a parking lot and, most impressive of all, Shop Eight, a small restaurant in New Regent street, a row of shops that miraculously survived the quake.

The restaurant was set up a year ago by Liz Phelan and chef Alex Davies an Essex lad who moved to New Zealand as a boy and who still retains his accent despite having spent most of his adult life in the country. 95% of the ingredients the restaurant uses are locally sourced, determined by what is available that day. Most are organic, all sustainable.

The short boldly imaginative menu changes every night. The night I was there (as a guest of the North Canterbury winegrowers* whose wines feature on the all-local list), it included a fragrant umami-rich fish soup with gurnard, clams oyster and summer truffles, a tomato salad with smoked mussels and basil, a punchy dish of spring onions and sprouted seeds with a slow cooked egg and chilli oil and a simply stunning main course of hare with red kale, beetroot, plums and red currants that seemed (probably was) designed to go with the local pinot noir.

There was two beautiful hand-made cheeses, a goats cheese and a deeply flavoursome ‘single origin’ washed rind cheese’ from a cow called Isobel (below) made by Biddy Fraser-Davies, a 72 year old cheesemaker from Cwmglyn farm between Wellington and Napier. (You can read about her battle with the authorities here.). And some warm buckwheat and honey madeleines to finish. This is food that you’d be impressed by if you found it in Paris or London, never mind Christchurch.

Shop Eight is a restaurant that keeps the community at the heart of its operations. Everything down to the furniture which was made by Rekindle from reclaimed wood from the quake is thoughtfully sourced.

If you’re in Christchurch don’t avoid the city centre. Go and celebrate its regeneration at Shop Eight

Shop Eight is at 8 New Regent Street, Christchurch and is open from 4pm from Tuesday to Friday and from 2pm on Saturdays. Closed Sundays and Mondays. To book email bookings@shopeight.co.nz or phone 03 390 0199. Its menus during February 2015 will be meat-free. You can keep tabs on them on Twitter and Facebook.

Another restaurant well worth visiting in Christchurch, I’m told, is Roots. I also stayed in a very comfortable luxury B & B out by the university called The Establishment - about 10-15 minutes from the airport.

*I tasted wines at the dinner from Bellbird Spring, Greystone, Mountford, Muddy Water, Pegasus Bay and Tongue in Groove. More on these in due course.

If you’d like be able to check out all the food and wine pairings on the site you can buy a bundle of credits here to access my premium content.

And/or for regular updates on what and where I’ve been eating, drinking and travelling sign up for my weekly newsletter Eat This, Drink That, Live Well.