Explore Auckland's Top Plant-Centric Food Spots

Meet Drissilla David and Plabita Florence – two leading lights of Auckland’s burgeoning plant-centric food scene.

Maison des Lys
567 Great North Road, Auckland 

Self-taught baker Drissilla David opened her pâtisserie, Maison des Lys, in October 2022, after two years trading at the Shed Collective Market. She and her partner Peter opened the shop hoping to spend more time with their young daughter Hazel. 

The twist? Maison des Lys’ inventive range of treats is entirely plant-based
– from ‘ham and cheese’ croissants, to delicate tartes aux fruits filled with vegan crème pâtissière, to the coffees made exclusively with plant-based milk. Drissilla went vegetarian in her teens and vegan a few years later, out of concern for animal welfare, and says she’s never looked back. 

Drissilla loves being able to delight people with French viennoiserie and pâtisserie that somehow avoids using any dairy or eggs, traditional mainstays of the genre. Maison des Lys uses an organic butter substitute made from shea butter, coconut oil and rapeseed oil and relies on aquafaba to replace egg whites. The hardest thing to replace? “Definitely egg yolks,” laughs Drissilla. It’s testament to her skill – she makes all the goodies by hand herself – that Maison des Lys’ pastries taste just as good as their all-butter counterparts. 

Maison des Lys is doing a roaring trade among Grey Lynn locals and visitors from further afield alike, popping in to sample an aquafaba cream-filled Biscoff croissant or a vegan macaron. Drissilla and Peter admit they’ve not yet had a weekend with leftovers. But what has especially thrilled the pair is being able to surprise non-vegans. 

“Very often when you are offering a vegan dessert, people are like... Ah, vegan. They’re not really excited about it,” says Drissilla. “I like to surprise them – when they try it, they’re like, ‘oh right, actually it doesn’t taste vegan’. I love being able to blow people’s minds.” maisondeslys.co.nz 

Forest
243 Dominion Road, Auckland

Auckland-based chef Plabita Florence opened her restaurant Forest as a kind of “creative exploration”, she says. Previously, she had been working for Kōkako Café for five years, where she was in charge of a totally vegetarian brunch menu. It proved a hit, but eventually Plabita felt limited by the brunch genre – so she launched Forest as a pop-up, serving a vegetarian dinner. Forest is now a permanent restaurant, serving a three-course set menu. 

The restaurant is known for its inventive, ever-changing seasonal dishes that push the boundaries of what vegetarian food can be – think avocado gazpacho with pickled carrots, smoked yoghurt and cucumber marinated in fermented chilli, or chicory filled with smashed garlic chive potatoes, pine nut cream, tomatoes, capers, brown butter and a fresh grating of nutmeg. 

Plabita is excited by the sheer unplumbed potential of vegetarian cooking. 

“I think there’s a world of delicious, juicy, delicate, floral, herbal flavours in plants and sometimes heavy hearty animal products overpower those, or dull them down,” she explains. “At the same time, they can of course complement each other. But I’m often reminded that the ratio that feels best to me – flavour-wise, physically, morally – is more plants, less of everything else.” 

For her, it’s all about making the most of plant flavours rather than missing the meat. A burnished whole roasted cauliflower, a creamy dhal or a delicate platter of tempura eggplant offer their own pleasures quite distinct from, say, a leg of lamb. Like Drissilla at Maison des Lys, she loves being able to surprise diners. 

“Cooking nice vegetarian food for a vegetarian isn’t the biggest challenge. It’s when you can make something so delicious that it stands up against food that isn’t vegetarian [...] The vegetarian label means more if it’s first of all just a delicious thing.” whatisforest.com