Experience New Zealand’s South Island via Tiny Seafood Shacks

When you’ve reached the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village of Haas, you’ve nearly made it to The Craypot. The road to Aotearoa, New Zealand’s most remote village, meanders 86 miles through the South Island’s Western Country, thick with Jurassic forests. Blankets of ancient mānuka trees and silver ferns tower so untouched that the distance to the nearest gas station begins to scratch at the edge of your thoughts. Founded by German settlers searching for precious pounamu jade, it’s another of the land’s most prized resources that now brings venturers here, quite literally, to the end of the road. As the West Country road system finally terminates, succumbing to the wild terrain of the Westland, road trippers will find sisters Dayna and Nicole Buchanan terraced along the water’s edge in a red caravan, craytails hissing on the grill.

To grow up in Aotearoa, New Zealand, is to grow up with crayfish: clawless spiny rock lobsters that, when pulled from Antipodean waters, go by the name of crays. (Not to be mistaken with the North American freshwater creatures of the same name.) The sweet and salty flesh beneath their spiked tails make for one of the island nation’s largest and most expensive exports, selling overseas for hundreds of dollars per pound. It’s a good reason to come and visit the source, where crayfish are often a casual and common affair, found splashed across neighborhood bistro menus and tossed on backyard barbecues. Kiwis tend to grow up spending their summers shoeless, ambling between beach and bach (an affectionately named ramshackle summer home) diving for cray or leaving out pots to pull them from the waters. With few endemic land animals, the heart of the food system is seafood or kaimoana, as the Māori call it, the original stewards of the land. And there’s no better way to explore the South Island than through the simple pleasures of its rugged roadside crayshacks.

In the December summer, the smell of drying seaweed and garlic butter is carried in occasional flicks of breeze. Sitting at The Craypot’s picnic tables that overlook the Tasman sea it’s easy to believe the Fiordland crested penguins living here quickly outnumber the 200 residents. “We haven’t allowed our remote location to hold us back in any way. What should be our biggest challenge, we embrace as our biggest asset,” Dayna says. Despite state highway closures that can cut off Jackson Bay from the rest of the country during weather events, the Buchanan sisters funnel this spirit into everything. The small space creates limits and they’re the first to tell you that they learned to cook on the job. Nevertheless, the results are the sort of simple magic you desperately hope to find at the end of the world — sweet crayfish quickly steamed, finished with a touch to the grill and a dressing of lemon and butter.

Cutting across the Otago Valley, you’ll find The Fish Wife nestled into a graveled jutting of Moeraki coast. It’s a simple operation here. Two hand-painted containers and seating constructed from metal cray traps speak to the Pile Family’s generational connection to fishing. John Pile is a fourth-generation cray fisherman, and his partner, Nicky, cooks the cray. They sell off anything that won’t grade high enough for export due to insignificant defects, like a broken antenna. This allows for high-quality seafood to be sold cheaply to the public. It’s a road more fishermen are choosing to take to provide kaimoana to their communities while increasing the sustainability of the industry.

It's the same mission that has Claire Edwards of Tora Collective — who supply some of the country’s best restaurants — up before sunrise and headed to the sea. “What makes us unique and what we're most proud of is our catch-to-order model,” Edwards explains. They only fish the exact number ordered each day, sending them from sea to door by the evening, to preserve marine environments. An important factor that makes cray so special: “Our pristine marine environment, enriched by the nutrient-dense currents flowing directly from the Arctic, gives an unparalleled flavor found nowhere else."

Edwards’ go-to shack is north, all the way to Nin’s Bin, in Kaikōura. The town whose name translates to “eat crayfish'' and hosts a yearly 16-day Crayfest, has no shortage of cray shacks but none so iconic as Nin’s Bin. Run by third-generation crayfisherman Johnny Clark, the roadside caravan was first parked in front of a strip of coastal shoulder by his grandfather in 1977. Simply adorned with a hand-painted sign advertising their catch (crayfish, whitebait!), little has changed over the years save for a new coat of paint every couple of decades. Load up a plate with a whole cray brushed in rich garlic butter and save room for a whitebait fritter (needle-sized immature fish, fried golden in batter). Both are best enjoyed sitting on the beach as the sand manages to find its way into the nooks of your clothing. 

Just down the road from the Kaikōura seal colony is Kaikōura BBQ Kiosk, where crays are sold by weight. Pick yours from the cooler and bring it over to be steamed and served alongside a thick slice of crusty garlic bread. While your cray is cooking, grab a cold beer or glass of wine from next door and pull up a seat. “World famous!” may be scrawled across the top of the kiosk, but as you’re waiting for your paper plate of cray, taking in the secluded, bare bones luxury of it all, you can’t help but wish it remains your little secret at the end of the world.