A Melbourne bar that used an image of a 19th-century St Kilda mayor with tā moko drawn on to promote a New Zealand beer showcase has been accused of mocking Māori culture.

This story was originally published on RNZ

A Melbourne bar has been criticised for using an image of a former St Kilda mayor with tā moko drawn on his face to promote a Waitangi Day event.

The bar, Freddie Wimpoles, is hosting a week-long New Zealand beer showcase with the event to also feature New Zealand music and food.

Freddie Wimpoles, which is named after a former St Kilda mayor and publican, has drawn tā moko on a picture of the bar’s namesake and given him a Māori cloak to advertise the event. (Update 1.45pm, 22 Jan: The bar has since changed the image to remove the mayor.)

The original image has offended some Māori and members of the New Zealand beer community.

The co-founder of the Wellington beer education business Craft Beer College, Steph Coutts, said she contacted Freddie Wimpoles last week about the offence using tā moko to promote a beer event could cause.

“Unfortunately, the manager from Wimpoles chose to highlight that as he was a New Zealander, there was no problem with the imagery,” Coutts said.

“[Freddie] Wimpoles’ sought permission for using the image of Frederick Wimpole in association with the bar. They didn’t appreciate that they need the permission of the owner of the tā moko. And, if they just made the tā moko up, they were culturally appropriating something important and sacred to Māori.”

Māori culture advocate Karaitiana Taiuru said it was offensive to have tā moko, which was a deeply personal graphical story of an individual’s genealogy and achievements, or any aspect of the head associated with food and beverages – more so when associated with alcohol.

“It is being disrespectful to the person’s whole genealogy, or simply mocking Māori culture,” Taiuru said.

“This [image] uses a dead person with someone else’s tā moko. Dead people and food is also offensive. Is it the liquid of the dead man that is the beer?”

Taiuru said just because the organiser of the event was Māori, did not mean it was okay to draw tā moko on someone’s face and use it to promote a beer event.

“All Māori are born with whakapapa but not all Māori are Māori practitioners with traditional and customary knowledge.”

We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, Don Rowe encounters New Zealand’s best steak and cheese pie.

The Steak and Cheese Index is the one true measure of whether or not a bakery is worth its crust. All establishments live and die by their flagship pie, and some few achieve transcendence. Ruatoria Pies takes it one step further still.

Far up the East Coast, where Rastafarians once burned churches to the ground deep in the throes of marijuana mysticism, Ruatoria has the sort of population you could count on two hands. The main street is bereft of ostentation. But behind a closed roadside door, magic happens.

Ruatoria Pies sits in the old Kiwi Tea Rooms, which have been in the Morice whānau since the late 1960s. Bobbi Morice, who owns Ruatoria Pies with her husband Pakanui Webb, bought the building as a way of creating employment so they might raise their children in the tiny East Coast town. They raised five. They couldn’t have known they’d also raise the bar for pies – worldwide.

All up and down the East Coast, easily New Zealand’s most underrated region, Ruatoria Pies can be found in warmers and ovens and backroom dairy freezers; from Tolaga Bay to Tokomaru Bay, Whakatāne to Wairoa. You’re unlikely even to spend more than a Sir Ed per pie. In the past week I spent much more, stuffing my face, covering my body in flakes and sauce, inhaling this most superb of pies. With that I bring you my thoughts: 

Slid gently from a humble brown paper bag, the pastry of a Hikurangi Steak and Cheese is light, flaky, traditional, without veering into gluggy gas station territory. These are pies devoid of adornment – no poppy seeds nor mustard patterning. But that only belies the flavour inside.

The steak betwixt the crust retains depth, substance, weight. There’s no gristle, no grit, no golf balls of fat. This is steak like your grandfather ate it, just better. Gravy, to some an afterthought, takes centre stage. It’s thick, peppered, with considered viscosity.  

Cheese, so often a tangy vinegar-plastic mistake, brings complexity to the steak, caressing it like a lover’s cheek. This is not your local bakery’s swill. There’s a playful intimacy here, where the flavours bounce off one another like playing tennis in the nude. And don’t get me started on that last, meaty bite. Is it any coincidence these pies were born in the epicentre of New Zealand’s cannabis trade? It’s hard to say, but I lean towards: no, it’s no coincidence. It’s a logical outcome. 

I have been to the mountain(potato)top and her name is Hikurangi. But don’t take my word, ask Fiona:

Verdict: In a region as spectacular as it is remote, Ruatoria Pies are just one more reason to head east.

Good or Bad: Phenomenal – buy 120.