There are people whose work seems to sit naturally at the meeting point of land, food, family and care. Dariush Lolaiy is one of them. Chef and co-owner of Cazador, co-founder of WithWild, hunter, father, traveller and storyteller, Dariush speaks about food with a deep sense of responsibility. Not in a heavy-handed way, but with the quiet understanding that what we eat carries a story. A place. A life. A set of choices. We caught up with Dariush to learn more about his career in cooking, and how WithWild, an idea we at Davaar feel connected to, came about. 

WithWild started, as many good New Zealand stories do, with a phone call between mates.

“It started with a phone call from my mate Scott McNeil, who's supplied us venison and line-caught fish for years,” Dariush recalls. “He asked if I'd be interested in Wapiti Venison. I said yes... then he mentioned I'd need to take quite a few whole deer.”

What might have overwhelmed another chef quickly became the beginning of something bigger. “I quickly realised it was bigger than one restaurant, so I called Nick Loosely at Everybody Eats. By the end of the day we'd looped in a couple more people and suddenly it felt possible.”

That same afternoon, New Zealand went into lockdown. While the world paused, the idea gathered shape.

“Lockdown started that afternoon, which gave us plenty of time to think. By the end of it, we had a business and a shared ambition to create a circular system where conservation is self-funded.”

That idea - conservation supporting itself through food - sits at the heart of WithWild. It is practical, thoughtful and inherently New Zealand. It also reflects the way Dariush has long understood food: as something connected to place, responsibility and respect.

His relationship with the outdoors began long before WithWild. Hunting with his father gave him more than skill; it gave him perspective.

“Until recently I probably took it for granted,” he says. “Life got busier, I spent less time in the bush, and I realised how much those experiences shaped me. It's where I reset.”

There is something steadying in that. Time outside, away from urgency and noise, has a way of restoring scale.

“Hunting with my dad taught me resilience and gave me an appreciation for the circle of life that carries on regardless of whatever drama you've got going on. It makes it easier to keep things in perspective.”

For Dariush, sourcing food directly from the land is not romanticised. It is intimate, yes, but it is also serious.

“Pulling a trigger carries a weight of responsibility. It's never something I take lightly. Harvesting food myself creates a connection that's hard to explain, and it makes me want to honour every part of the animal.”

That sense of honour carries through to the kitchen at Cazador, where wild ingredients are handled with care, restraint and generosity. “That respect naturally carries through into the way I cook and hopefully encourages people to value food and time a little more.”

The bush, he says, does not necessarily give him ideas in the moment. It gives him the space for ideas to arrive later.

“The bush slows me down. My head clears, and that's usually when ideas start surfacing. The creativity doesn't happen while I'm hunting, it comes afterwards, once I've had the space to think.”

This feels central to the way Dariush cooks. Nothing is forced. Ingredients are not bent into cleverness for the sake of it. They are observed, understood, then brought together with a kind of natural logic.

“I think of ingredients as naturally aligned, so if I see things working in harmony, I'll try to bring them into the kitchen. Like using ti-tree to baste meat when I'm cooking. I don't try to force disparate things to work together.”

At Cazador, this becomes food that feels both wild and deeply considered. New Zealand ingredients are allowed to retain their character, while the restaurant setting offers warmth, ease and a sense of occasion.

“The abundance of our landscape inspires generosity,” says Dariush. “We work hard to source special ingredients, so they deserve careful treatment. Not complicated cooking, just respectful cooking that lets the ingredient shine.”

And then, of course, there is the table. The part that turns sourcing and cooking into memory.

“Then the rest is about creating a table where people relax, have another glass of wine, and lose track of time.”

Alongside the wild food of Aotearoa, Dariush’s Persian heritage brings another layer to his cooking. He speaks of flavour with the same patience and instinct that appears elsewhere in his work.

“I'm always drawn to earthy flavours like saffron, dried lime and lots of herbs. Persian food also teaches patience. Slow cooking, layering flavour and letting things develop over time. That's definitely stayed with me.”

That idea of patience - of allowing things to develop rather than rushing them - feels closely aligned with Davaar too. Good things take time. They ask for care, attention and a respect for where they come from.

Dariush and his wife Rebecca also lead food tours through Mexico, a country whose cuisine continues to inspire them for its richness, craft and joy.

“Optimism, excitement and inspiration,” is what travelling through another food culture gives him. “Mexican food has incredible depth, but it's also full of generosity and humour. It's sophisticated without taking itself too seriously.”

There is a lovely humility in that observation. Food can be serious without being self-important. It can be refined and still full of life.

“Watching our guests discover just how diverse the cuisine is reminds us why we fell in love with it in the first place.”

Through WithWild, Dariush has also spent time in Fiordland - one of the great wild places of New Zealand, and a landscape that leaves its mark.

“It's one of the most extraordinary places I've ever been,” he says. “Vast, quiet and deeply humbling. You can't spend time there without thinking about how lucky we are, and how important it is to look after our shared place.”

That phrase - our shared place - feels important. It is a reminder that land is not simply backdrop, resource or scenery. It is something we inherit, rely on and are responsible for.

For Dariush, WithWild matters because it creates conversation as much as product.

“The business is exciting, but what's more important are the conversations it's starting,” he says. “If we can help people think differently about wild food, provenance and responsible conservation, then we've achieved something much bigger than selling venison.”

In a country such as ours, where the future of food is inseparable from questions of land, water, stewardship and identity, he believes wild protein deserves a central place.

“Right at the centre,” he says. “New Zealand has an incredible story to tell. If we want to be recognised as a world-class food-producing nation, then stewardship, provenance and our unique wild food resources have to be part of that story.”

And when the conversation turns to his two young daughters, the future becomes personal.

“I think about their future all the time,” he says. “I hope they grow up connected to nature rather than disconnected from it.”

What he hopes they inherit is not only access to beautiful places, but an understanding of how to care for them.

“I want them to understand how special these places are, feel confident in the outdoors, and care for the environment in the same way my father taught me.”

It is this thread that runs through Dariush’s work: food as connection, not commodity. Cooking as a way of honouring what has been gathered. Conservation as something lived, not simply spoken about. A table where people gather, lose track of time, and perhaps leave with a little more understanding of the land that feeds us.

With Fiordland on our backdoor, we’re deeply moved by the efforts of the WithWild team and work is currently underway on a collaborative Davaar x WithWild project that is set to be released later this Winter. Until then, we highly recommend you stop by the Cazador Deli or book a seat at Cazador Restaurant next time you’re in Auckland. Established in 1987, with the second generation on the tools, it’s a family story worth championing. 

Dariush Lolaiy @dlolaiy 

WithWild @withwild_

Cazador Deli @cazador_deli

Cazador Restaurant @cazador_akl

San Ray (Dariush & Rebecca’s Mexican vibes venue) @sanray.nz 

Photography: Emily Raftery @emilyrafteryphotography