Milford Sound Business Class
Savour Fiordland's Table: A Culinary Journey Through Milford Sound
Date: 26 November 2025Fiordland is a landscape that feeds the senses long before it feeds the body — the scale, the silence, the shadowed cliffs rising straight from the sea. When we set out to create Milford Sound Business Class, we wanted the dining to feel just as deeply rooted. Not restaurant food placed on a boat, but Fiordland expressed on a plate.
So, we partnered with chef Tom Hishon, whose work begins not in the kitchen but in the land itself. As co-founder of Kingi in Auckland and former chef behind the award-winning Orphans Kitchen, Tom has built a reputation for cooking that connects deeply to New Zealand's landscapes and seasons. His approach, working directly with small fishers, growers, and guardians of ingredients, made him the natural choice for a menu rooted in place.
The result is Taste of Murihiku, the five-course tasting menu for Milford Sound Business Class, shaped by wild coastlines, alpine peaks, and the traditions of the people who call this place home.
Chef Tom Hishon x RealNZ: Designing the Milford Sound Business Class Menu
The menu - Taste of Murihiku
Chef Hishon's philosophy is straightforward: Murihiku Southland is the menu. Each course emerges from a specific corner of the region, from the remote Tītī Islands to the glacial waters beneath Aoraki. These are local, seasonal ingredients refined against the sheer scale of the fiord.
His approach centres on provenance, but also on people. Each ingredient is chosen for its connection to Murihiku, sourced from producers and guardians who've spent years understanding the seasonal rhythms, the harvesting windows, the cultural significance of what they tend. These are knowledgeable hands behind the menu, turning guardianship into flavour.
Menu Highlights
Every dish carries a thread of the region's history and ecology.
A Cultural Taonga
Experience Tītī (Muttonbird), a culturally significant delicacy served as a croquette with orange and horopito gel. This taonga is harvested exclusively by local iwi during a brief seasonal window, by families who've maintained this practice for generations.
The Mountains
Settle in with a bone broth of wild Fiordland Wapiti, an ingredient that roams the peaks you're gazing upon. This rich broth is sourced from careful conservation harvests that help protect native habitats.
The Ocean
Savour the briny sweetness of Baby Pāua dressed in black garlic, and Mt Cook Alpine Salmon Caviar atop a crisp potato rosti. Our Pāua is raised in conditions that mirror their natural habitat in Bluff, ensuring a flavour that's true to the source.
The Provenance of Murihiku
Murihiku, the tail end of the fish, is the Māori name for Southland, stretching from the fiords to the wild southern coast. This is a region defined by extremes: nutrient-rich ocean currents colliding with freshwater from glacial rivers, alpine conditions shaping hardy ingredients, coastal exposure creating robust flavours. It's a place where everything that grows or swims has earned its existence against the elements.
That resilience shows up in the ingredients. The Tītī harvest relies on generations of ecological knowledge. The Wapiti represents a careful balance between conservation and sustainable use. Even the Mt Cook Alpine Salmon thrives in the cold, pristine waters that flow from the Southern Alps. These aren't ingredients chosen for novelty, they're the ones that belong here, that tell the truth about where you are.
Manaakitanga in Every Moment
Manaakitanga runs deeper than a warm greeting. It's in the way the experience has been designed: reserved seating that gives you space to settle in, personal hosting that reads the room, the timing of each course matched to what's unfolding outside the windows.
Tom's menu doesn't demand attention, it invites it. Each plate arrives as the landscape shifts, creating a quiet dialogue between what you're tasting and what you're seeing.
And there's the wine. Your experience begins with a glass of Cloudy Bay Pelorus on arrival. For those wanting to go further, an optional wine pairing features New Zealand wines chosen to echo the menu's focus on place and provenance.
As you glide beneath waterfalls and past hanging valleys, you'll experience Piopiotahi in a way that feels intimate, considered, and unforgettable.
This is Milford Sound, like never before.
