Souperb Sundays at Palate Raise $7k

Words Vicki Ravlich-Horan

For five Sundays in August the Palate Soup Kitchen opened its doors.  Each week two local chefs took their turn in the kitchen to create a souperb dish.  Just $25 a bowl the public lined up to support this initiative supported by the kind sponsorship from Sky City Hamilton.

With the generous sponsorship from Sky City along with The Grumpy Bake, Fed Foods and other local suppliers like Seafood Bazaar, every cent from each bowl went to Go Eco. 

The result?  Much more than the $7000 raised!

Kelli Pike from Go Eco said “We’ve been so blown away by the support – it’s well and truly gone above and beyond. Seeing the collaboration in the industry (who we acknowledge also struggle) has been humbling.”

The $7000 will go to support Go Eco’s food rescue initiative which saves edible food from landfill by distributing it to the community.  Food waste is an issues chefs deal with every day. 

But what the Soup Kitchen did is illustrate the generosity of Waikato chefs.  When we sent out the request for volunteers we had more chefs jump on board than we needed.  This is in the context of what is arguably the toughest time hospitality has faced.  Sunday is traditionally chefs days off, and those whose day off wasn’t sacrificed it was added to their already long shifts.

What they bought was positivity and community and this is something we could all do with more of at the moment.

So, a HUGE thanks to  Mat & Larissa at Palate for playing host.

And to chefs Scott Bray (Sky City), Matiu Rapana (Mr Pickles), Logan Murray (Thyme Square), Andrew Clarke, Amanda Jo Pickup (The Lookout),  Harry Williams (The Red Barn) , Sandeep Singh (Hayes Common), Andrew Pietersz (The Keg Room) & Joe Arthur (Palate).