By Leigh O’Connor.
There are places where the sea feels like a living presence, whispering its secrets through tides and winds and New Zealand is one of them.
Its coastline stretches wild and unbroken, carved by salt and time, home to creatures that have long sustained those who knew how to find them. For most visitors, the culinary spotlight shines on lamb, green-lipped mussels, or the famed Bluff oysters.
Yet those who linger longer, who look past the expected, discover other treasures - delicacies that carry the very heartbeat of the ocean. Among these are kina and paua, two of Aotearoa’s most beguiling gifts, as mysterious as they are unforgettable.
To seek out kina is to step into the raw intimacy of the shoreline. At first, the sea urchin is anything but inviting - its spiny shell bristles like a tiny fortress, wedged firmly in the rocks where waves crash and retreat.
Inside, past the prickly armour, lies a miracle of colour and texture: golden roe, soft and glistening, like fragments of the sun hidden away in the sea’s depths. The taste is bold, carrying the brine of the tide, the sweetness of fresh kelp and the mineral whisper of rock and salt spray.
It is not a flavour that flatters timid palates, but rather one that insists you pay attention. For Maori, kina has long been a taonga, a treasure gathered with reverence, eaten fresh on the rocks with nothing but the sea breeze as accompaniment. To share kina this way is to taste the ocean as it truly is - untamed, unadorned and deeply alive.
Paua, by contrast, reveals itself with a flourish of beauty before you even taste it. Its shell is a work of art, shimmering with shifting blues, purples and greens, like a fragment of the night sky caught beneath the waves.
To hold one is to cradle the ocean’s own jewellery, crafted not for human hands but for the mystery of its own existence. Within lies flesh unlike any other - dense yet yielding, sweet yet earthy, with a richness that satisfies like few other seafoods can.
Prepared simply, seared with just a hint of heat, paua sings of the sea’s generosity. Folded into fritters, it takes on a rustic comfort; simmered in a curry, it becomes something lush and fragrant.
Its shells, too, are treasured, used in carvings and adornments that shimmer with spirit and connection. Eating paua is to experience nourishment and beauty woven together, the physical and the symbolic entwined.
For the traveller, tasting these delicacies is more than a culinary indulgence - it is a journey. Kina and paua are not merely food but encounters, moments that connect you to place and tradition.
They carry you to wave-battered rocks where divers slip beneath the surface, to beach fires where families gather and share, to centuries of stories carried on salt air. They remind you that in Aotearoa, food is not just about the plate - it is about the land, the water and the spirit that binds them.
To taste kina is to taste the sea’s fire, sharp and golden. To taste paua is to hold the ocean’s heart, glowing with hidden light. Together they are unforgettable, treasures of New Zealand that linger not only on the palate but in the imagination - flavours that carry you home with the rhythm of the tide still echoing in your veins.
