On Tuesday morning I went back to Fleurs Place for breakfast. This idiosyncratic little restaurant in far away Moeraki on New Zealand’s South Island attracts me like no other. It combines simple, wholesome preparations of the freshest food with an utterly unpretentious atmosphere. Besides that, it specializes in fish that Fleur buys daily off the Moeraki dock.

Some Moeraki Fishing Boats with Fleur's in the Front

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This classy restaurant fits right in with this unspoiled village. Fluers Place doesn’t even have a sign, unless you count the blackboard that you can see here.

Fleurs Place in Moeraki

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Here is Fleur, standing at the counter surrounded by some customers and staff.

Downstairs in the Restaurant

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I ate in the less crowded upstairs room. When I asked Fleur if she could help me name the crested bird that I couldn’t identify at the Willowbank reserve, she got a copy of a New Zealand bird book and sat down at my table where I was reading a book that a couple of New Zealand authors wrote about the restaurant a couple of years ago.

Fleur at My Table

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While we couldn’t find a photo of that bird in the book, we identified the colorful pair of different ducks I found at the Christchurch Botanic Garden. They are paradise shelducks, which are endemic to New Zealand.

My perfect breakfast was eggs en cocotte with smoked fish, spinach, and toasted rye bread (I skipped the bread, as I always do). Fluer told me that the smoked fish was trumpeter and moki, which is “doubly good because it eats seaweed.”

Maybe next year I will spend my whole vacation in Moeraki and eat all my meals there, except when Fleurs Place is closed on Monday and Tuesday. I could fast on those days.