Adelaide-born and trained, Pete Gawron has worked in some of Australia's best restaurants and each year travels and works in restaurants overseas. Saffron has been a finalist in the prestigious Cuisine Restaurant of the Year Awards for many years and has also been saluted by Conde Nast Traveler. Pete runs Saffron with his wife, Melanie Hill. Arrowtown-born Aaron McLean is one of New Zealand's best-known food photographers. His work has appeared in cookbooks and leading magazines such as Cuisine, Dish and Taste. Sam Neill owns the Central Otago vineyard Two Paddocks. He is internationally known for a string of high-profile movie roles. Grahame Sydney lives at St Bathans in the Maniototo, and is one of New Zealand's best-known painters. He has recently moved into photography and documentary-making.

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Arrowtown's Saffron is one of the hottest restaurants in the Queenstown–Arrowtown Basin. Tourists, foodies and locals all appreciate the zest and passion with which owner–chef Pete Gawron and his wife Melanie Hill run this vibrant, buzzing establishment. Pete and Mel have built a real food empire in the town: across the historic alleyway from Saffron there's the Blue Door Bar and further along there's the pizza joint Pesto. But it's at Saffron that Pete's flavourful cooking style is best showcased, as is the local produce of which he is such a great champion. The Saffron cookbook celebrates Pete's favourite recipes from the restaurant, many featuring local ingredients he hand-harvests in season, including crab apples and stone fruit from trees dating back to the gold-mining days, snowberries, mushrooms, wild raspberries and gooseberries, game birds from Bendigo Station, alpine honey from Halfway Bay Station and more. Set alongside outstanding food and landscape photography by Aaron McLean and with a chapter on Central Otago wine by Sam Neill, and another on Arrowtown by Grahame Sydney, Saffron is both a tribute to a great restaurant and also New Zealand's first true regional cookbook, a marvellous evocation of this most special part of New Zealand.