Fleur

Book excerpt: The memoir of the characterful restaurateur and national treasure. Fleur Sullivan is a South Island legend, the culinary maven responsible for not one but two iconic local restaurants — Olivers in Clyde and the eponymous Fleurs Place in Moeraki. Now, at the age of 72, she's running a third, The Loan and Merc in her home town of Oamaru. Her eventful career has spanned more than 40 years, during which time she's transformed two sleepy towns into international destinations. Fleur is brimming with great stories, anecdotes, reminiscences, the conversations had round her table and friendships formed in her establishments. This memoir chronicles her early life cooking in a pub on the West Coast, through to setting up Dunstan House in Clyde and on to the heady days of the restaurant scene in the 1970s in Queenstown. Drawing on this range of influences, Fleur then returned to Clyde and embarked on the 20-year journey that was Olivers, using local produce and products at a time when no one else was doing so. From there she went to Moeraki and opened her world-renowned fish restaurant Fleurs Place. Everything Fleur does is touched by her warmth, vision and enthusiams, making her places the place to be. IIlustrated with new photography by Aaron McLean, plus Fleur's own photographs and ephemera.