I have always wondered where ideas come from: a thought drops into your brain and begins to develop – maybe as you lie in bed at night – the planning somehow begins and the self belief grows, then at some point you pluck up the courage to do something about it. Taking a leap of faith into uncertainty, the dream is borne into reality.
But how do you turn a dream into something absolute? How do you know the idea is a good one, and how do you communicate it so others will actually ‘get it’? Could you create a checklist or master plan that you could mentally go through to separate the good ideas from the bad ones before you jump?
I first heard about a young chef named Jack Cashmore on Instagram around the beginning of 2020. An Englishman with a phenomenal hospo pedigree, he was building his dream on an isolated mountain top in the middle of a Central North Island sheep-and-beef station called Blue Duck Station. As I looked deeper I realised that not only would this fine-dining location be further from a regional airport than any other, but it was also being created during the Covid abyss. I thought to myself, “How romantic. How beautifully insane!”

Dan Steele (left) with Ben Bayly
My own dream was coming into reality with Ahi at the same time. In the midst of the first lockdown, my restaurant idea was being questioned heavily by many: Is he brave or mad? As I mortgaged the small equity in the family home to finance a new venue in one of the riskiest industries at an unprecedented time, I felt I could hear people whisper, “Oh poor Ben, why is he doing this now?”
Fanboying Jack from afar during that time somehow made my worries seem smaller. I was grateful, I guess, that there were other crazy people out there, too. So, I was hooked on his journey as he rolled up his sleeves and traded a chef’s knife for a nail gun and I couldn’t wait to go one day.
Now, almost five years on, it’s well documented how well Jack has done: two hats and Best Specialist Restaurant 2024 in the Cuisine Good Food Guide and a stellar reputation within the industry to boot. So, it’s truly fitting to be here with our New Zealand Food Story crew to film what I know will be a special episode.
Firstly, Jack introduces me to Dan Steele, his business partner in the restaurant and the owner of the station. Dan impresses me more and more as I get to know him and he reveals his attitude to his industry and his property. Calling him just a farmer would be an insult: he is a conservationist, a jet-boat pilot, a tour guide, a storyteller and the keeper of local history. Dan loves his property, he loves the Whanganui National Park that surrounds it, and he especially loves the farm’s namesake, the endangered whio or blue duck. Dan is known as the Blue Duck Man and is also an International Nuffield Farming Scholar.
Dan’s 7200-acre family station is at the frontier of farming in New Zealand. The pioneers broke their backs on this hard country as they failed to break the land, leaving behind splintered dreams, deserted townships and the infamous Bridge To Nowhere. He says he often thinks of the old settlers who tried to trick this land into growing grass. “They would think we were mad as hell if I could tell them there was a restaurant on the top of that hill with people paying good money to visit!”
So how did Jack sucker Dan into the remote restaurant business? It turns out it was 50:50: the restaurant was Jack’s idea but its location was Dan’s. I love this – that ideas and dreams are enhanced and can greatly exceed your own expectations by collaborating with the right people. Jack explains, “Dan suggested that we should consider the ‘top of the world site’ for the restaurant dream. The site had everything I’d ever sought: views, [it is] unique in its remoteness, the mandatory farm-to-table sourcing of ingredients. It was almost too crazy to fail… and that was good enough for us. There were many sites I looked at (in the cities around New Zealand), some were OK and could have made a ‘nice’ restaurant but when we stood up on that mountain there was a surety came over me that this was the spot to do it, the spot to overcome all manner of adversity and create something truly unique and special.”
So, back to that first idea: how do you turn a dream into reality?
Well just take a look at Dan and Jack’s journey: you meet; you talk; you have shared values and vision; you follow up; you work for free; you commit everything you have to a project; you are headstrong, yet have empathy; you bat away criticism from anyone who you wouldn’t actually take advice from; you have blind trust in your business partners; you do something different to everyone else; you build it and they will come. Checklist complete.
Certainty is your enemy in life; uncertainty is where the magic happens because it has to.
Jack and Dan’s vision and mindset for The Blue Duck Station has created the type of place that has broken the unbreakable land by working with it and not against it. Emotions are evoked, memories created and a sense of place achieved. It’s almost a ‘praise be’ moment as I wine and dine at The Chef’s Table at The Top Of The World. As the sun sets on the West Coast behind Mt Taranaki, I have eaten one of the greatest and most complete food stories in New Zealand. I’m in love with this place and the two people who have worked so hard to achieve it.
In the past and in future, the restaurant deserves all its success and they have proven it was a crazy good idea. My hope is that more will stand on the shoulders of these two giants and follow this Blue Duck blueprint. blueduckstation.co.nz ■

Photo credit : Orianna Photography
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