Mr Smith, head chef at the award-winning Riverstone Kitchen, in North Otago, was part of a group taste-testing meals in Dunedin Hospital's kitchen.
The kitchen has re-established an initiative started by former executive chef Sarah Marshall, who died this year.
Southern District Health Board hospitality operations manager Justin Bellass said the tasting sessions had been renamed "Sarah's Table" rather than "The Chef's Table".
This ensured the former executive chef and hospitality manager's memory was present in the place she loved.
"She was an inspirational individual who loved her work and she is being missed," Mr Bellass said.
The hospital menu was always evolving and the chefs and other invited guests' feedback helped that process. Devising menus meant balancing nutrition, cost, taste, and the dishes' suitability to be transported, Mr Bellass said.
The group tasted existing and new dishes, with ricotta and potato gnocchi with spinach bolognaise, couscous terrine, vegetable lasagne, and Roman gnocchi with a tomato and oregano sauce the new ones.
New desserts were a "super moist" apple and cinnamon cake, and panna cotta with orange and honey.
And it seems public-sector patients might be as well fed as those in the private sector.
Mercy Hospital food service team leader Dianne Hayes acknowledged the "fantastic" dishes were "on a par" with what was served at Mercy.
Executive chef Kostya Cherkun said his mission was to show that "quantity can be quality".
The Dunedin Hospital kitchen produced about 1500 dishes a day, which included meals for other Southern DHB hospitals and services.
