When it comes to talking about Auckland (Tāmaki Makaurau in te reo Māori) food and coffee, Sam Low boasts some intimidating credentials.

Low became a household name in New Zealand when he won the 2022 season of Masterchef, but he was already a latte-art champion and seasoned coffee educator. Still, for him, food and drink is about a lot more than just the accolades – it’s an industry that helped him come out of his teenage shell, and gave him confidence in his identity as a gay Chinese New Zealander.

A love of food is born
Low’s early childhood in Fiji was steeped in the food-making of his Chinese parents, who owned a cafe and noodle factory. The family migrated to New Zealand after the 2000 Fijian coup d’état and began running dairies (New Zealand convenience stores), takeaways and fish’n’chips shops.

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Low’s interest in Western cooking began during high school, when he began collecting Gordon Ramsay cookbooks. His first hospitality job was as a kitchen assistant at the Auckland Seafood School. He then became an apprentice at SkyCity Auckland, working both back- and front-of-house, before pursuing coffee as a junior barista at Atomic Coffee Roasters.

“I was that shy Asian kid working as a barista, where there were not many people like me in that field,” Low says.

He went on to win the New Zealand Latte Art Championship in 2013, 2015 and 2016, and eventually became a coffee trainer at Code Black Coffee Roasters in Melbourne.

Low says that what inspires him about the food and beverage industry is its diversity.

“‘It includes people with different voices, talents and ages. That’s what I love about it.”

He says his early focus on Western cooking was because, as a migrant, “eating my family’s cuisine wasn’t very celebrated”. But a key moment in the New Zealand Masterchef final came when he served pāua (abalone) congee to the judges – it helped win him not only the show but also the admiration of New Zealanders, and particularly the country’s migrant and Chinese communities.

“I wish I had seen something like that when I was younger,” he says. “If there’s just one queer Asian kid watching Masterchef and is like, ‘Hey, that person is just like me, and they’re thriving in being who they are,’ then that’s my job done.”

Discovering the Auckland food scene
Low reckons Auckland has you covered when it comes to diverse eats.

“There’s a great range of options,” he says. “Offerings aren’t [reduced] to a simple ideal or philosophy – [there are a lot of options] from flavour to feel and price.”

Dominion Road, for example, a major arterial road stretching from Mount Eden to Mount Roskill, south of the city, is a well-known hub for food lovers. “It’s the unofficial Chinatown,” Low says. Another is Karangahape Road in the CBD, known to locals as K’ Road. “If I say let’s go to K’ Road for dinner, that’s assuming we’re hitting up a bar and a fun, casual and likely Eurocentric eat. Different parts of Auckland have these identities.”

Two of Low’s favourite restaurants sit within a well-known pocket of eateries at the intersection of Dominion and Balmoral roads. Jadetown Uyghur Cuisine serves Muslim-Chinese food – think lamb skewers with cumin, rice cooked in sweet carrot broth, and pickles similar to sauerkraut. Low loves how Jadetown gets diners thinking about regional cuisine.

“If I gave you that food without any context, you’d be like, ‘I don’t know what country this is from. Is it Mongolian, or is it Russian?’” he says. “That’s what I love about food – it stops you from assuming and gets you questioning.”

Also in Balmoral, Low says Gogo Music Cafe is a giant vibe.

“Tell me where else you’d find a northern-central Chinese-style skewer restaurant set inside a cowboy-themed establishment?” Amid the smoke of chargrilled spicy lamb skewers are giant hand-pulled noodles served with bubble tea. “You can’t help but go in there and smile because you’re so confused, but it somehow just feels right. That’s Gogo Music.”

Brunch and coffee, Auckland style
For brunch, Low can’t go past the newly opened Duo in Birkenhead. Chef and co-owner Jordan Macdonald has a fine-dining background, and his menu includes specialties such as raw tuna on toast. It’s a classic Kiwi cafe with an elevated twist on bistro-style food.

“They did lobster on toast at one point. I was like, ‘OMG,’” Low says.

Coffee Pen is a little coffee shop tucked down a slight hill in Mount Eden. Dog-friendly and situated next to a park, its outdoor picnic tables sit in the shade of some fetching trees. Everyone goes there, from lycra mums to university students, Low says, and it serves some of the best banoffee pie in Auckland.

When it comes to coffee, traceability and bean quality are paramount to Low. He prefers speciality coffee, such as that prepared by Rumours Coffee in a minimalist CBD space that feels more like an Aesop store than somewhere to grab a morning brew. For a Fairtrade coffee-tasting experience, Kokako in Commercial Bay has a bunch of different brew methods, from filter coffee to expresso tonics, flavoured cold brew, and even coffee infused with nitrogen for a smooth and sweetened taste.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with 100% Pure New Zealand. For more great content, follow Broadsheet NZ on Facebook and Instagram.

This article first appeared on Broadsheet on January 26, 2022, and was updated on November 23, 2023.