Chef teaches Chinese about New Zealand, one scoop at a time

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

That old Chinese proverb was not written for award-winning New Zealand chef Dion McGrath, but his kitchen trajectory in China could be a living example of the Taoist philosophy.

Having worked as a chef for almost three decades with various fine dining restaurants and five-star hotels mainly in Asia, McGrath took on the consultancy of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in 2013 to help promote produce from his home country, a role that he hesitated about for five years before finally accepting.