Chris Rendell

Conversation with a chef: How's your day been?

Chris Rendell: Not too bad. We're just doing a few little tweaks and changes at the moment, just getting ready for spring.

Nice. And is that the new repertoire painted on the wall outside?

That's all their weekly specials, steak night and roasts and locals night.

I used to live just down the road actually and now I drive past every day to work, so I have seen the sign. And you are going back and forwards from New Zealand?

I'm based in New Zealand. I'm originally from Melbourne, but haven't lived here since 1996 when I moved to Sydney. So it's been a while.

How does it feel being back?

Good. I always come back. I was in New York for 17 years before moving back to New Zealand, which has been about six years now. Mum and dad live in Adelaide, so I am often back over.

And are you in Auckland?

Yes, we're in Auckland.

I've just been booking a trip to go back to see my mum in Christchurch, but Im going via Auckland so I can talk to a couple of great chefs there, at Tala with Henry Onesemo and. Lucas Parkinson at Aryeh in Piha.

Henry is just down the road from us, we have a restaurant up there with the group I work for, Non Solo pizza, which has been there for decades.

How many restaurants are you overseeing?

20. Some of those are multiple sites under the same concept and some are quick service. We have high end sort of restaurants Mano and Azabu and Bivacco and NSP, which we bought a couple of years before 2019, which is in its 27th year. And then we have, so OJI Sushi and we have Auckland Fish Markets and Lobster and Tap and a lot of that sort of quick service market as well.

How do you keep track of all of that?

Yeah, it's a lot.

I saw you were on the pans in there, so you still like to be in the kitchen?

Yeah, I do the same over there.

Great. But you must be dealing with a lot of people then?

We have about 500 staff. It is usually around 550, it has come down a little. That's a natural winter decline. It ramps back up in summer. I find New Zealand is a little bit seasonal. They're all on or it's all off.

And that's a variety of different cuisines as well.

Yes. Italian, Japanese, Peruvian style Japanese. Mano only uses New Zealand ingredients apart from spices. Then we have the classic Italian, which is the Non Solo pizza and then sushi and fish chips and Bang Bang is Chinese.

Well, it's never a dull moment, I suppose. And what's on the menu here?

We have a little snack menu, obviously at a bar. You want people to be able to walk in and just have a little bite without it being too challenging. You don't want people to have to spend the first 10 minutes thinking so theres burrata and focaccia and some smaller plates, prosciutto and tomato salad. And then there's obviously the classics, which I think, people come to expect at a pub. The Parma is the number one seller.

Is it?

By a country mile. I don't think you could ever change that.

The parma hasn't really taken off in New Zealand.

No, well, pub culture doesn't really exist there either. No, not like it does here.

What is the key to a good Parma?

I think it's obviously good chicken, tender, good crust, cheese, good sauce, moist. And good chips on the side. Salad there for decoration because no one eats it. But I was quite surprised at how much it actually does sell compared to everything else.

That's so amazing, isn't it? I suppose it's something people don't cook for themselves at home.

No, there's a lot of work involved in it. Youve got chicken breasts, crumbed, breaded, fry it, season it, load it up with all its toppings and bake it, gratinate it, plate it. There's a lot of moving parts to it. For a pub dish its a little bit complex. There are lots of elements to it.

Do you have a favourite cuisine that you like working with?

I started off in Italian here in Melbourne. I worked with a chef called Robert Castellani, who was Stephanie Alexander's head chef for about 12 to 15 years. I worked with him at Carmine's, which was a bit of an institution way back then on Toorak Road. Then I went to Donovan's with him as well. Then I moved up to Sydney and moved into that Thai space or Southeast Asian space with Neil Perry and Christine Manfield for a long time.And then into London at the Sugar Club which was a fusion sort of style. And with David Thompson in London as well. I have a two loves Southeast Asian more, and then Italian, modern Italian, which I'd focus more in New Zealand. We don't really do any of that modern Southeast Asian. It's more the Japanese Peruvian, Nobu-esque style.

Did you always know you wanted to be a chef?

No. I left school here and didn't want to go to Uni. My mother asked, what do you want to do? I didnt know. Then she actually saw an ad at the time, I was actually working at the Pancake Parlour at Chadstone and was doing all their production and I really enjoyed it. It was very systematic and very organised, and they were growing really strong back then. Wherever there was a Hoyts popping up, there was a Pancake Parlour next to it. I moved around with them and worked at the snow with them. And then mum saw an ad for a place in East Melbourne called Il Duca, which was an Italian restaurant, and I went there and started my apprenticeship there and really got into it.

Can you remember what it was that you loved about it and made you want to pursue it?

The hours didn't bother me, that was fun. I even remember working at Carmine's and taking prep home because it was so busy and so intense. You wouldn't do that now. But sitting there and peeling mushrooms at home. It was pretty full on. But I enjoyed that.

Starting out you worked with some really great people, so did you always have quite high intentions?

No, all these things just happened. My job in Sydney, I went up with a mate who was working for Reuters. He had a spare ticket. He had a conference up there back when Reuters existed. I was in Sydney laying on Bondi Beach, and I saw an ad for Neil Perry, he was opening up Star Grill and he was holding interviews that day. I was in literally board shorts and a T-shirt down at Bondi laying on the beach. I called Michael McEnearney, who was the chef of Rockpool at the time, and now has Mike's Kitchen in Sydney. He said, come on down. He kind of knew Rob. He had worked with Rob Castellani. I was working with him at the time of Carmines. Two weeks later I had resigned and was up in Sydney and then I met a chef who said said, Hey, Christine Manfield was looking for someone, do you want to jump over? I said, sounds great. Not realising at the time the intensity of working with Christine would be. I was with there for five years. It was amazing.

And then, was London always a goal?

Not intentionally. I was only ever going to be gone six months and 24 years later Ive managed to stumble back. I'm not even back to Australia yet, I'm still on that path.

Working in places like London and New York, what was it like? What were your first impressions?

London was hard. London was good fun because I was working at Sugar Club which was a real home for Antipodeans. There were a lot of Australians and New Zealanders, and obviously through that Peter Gordon connection and South Africans were there as well on the floor and in the kitchen. It was like a real little home. It was hard work, but it was fun. New York was and is tough. You really have to work.

Are diners different, do they have different expectations?

Probably because I had my own restaurant in New York in the last few years, you notice it more then I think the Sugar Club we were just doing the cooking and being a part of it as opposed to focusing on what clients wanted or being more involved in that sort of sense.

So then when it's your own place, would you look at reviews?

When we opened Flinder's Lane in New York it was when Yelp and all those sort of review platforms were really starting to emerge and people would come in and sat, I'm a Yelp elite, and you'd be like, okay, what does that mean? They'd say, youd better be on your A game because I can take you down. Even Instagram hadn't even really started. In 2014, it was there, but it wasn't what it was now.

What do you think about where the industry is at the moment?

I think we're plateauing and I think hopefully with summer, people will start to brighten up a little bit. I know a lot of people are changing their models and how they operate with no servers and relying on the customer to do everything and that's coming out of labour and the cost of goods. There's a lot of change in there. But, there'll always be a market for people having a dining experience. Why go out if I have to get my water and go to the counter and then pick it up and take it to the table. For sake of still spending the same amount.

You've had lots of experiences all the way up the ranks and then head cheffing and then as an owner, and now you're overseeing all of these multiple places in terms of having to deal with all these different teams of people. How do you go into different kitchens and get them on side?

New Zealand specific I guess, but each place has a head chef that's responsible and the onus is on them. We give them the ability to run with it with some direction and guidance. That's through finance, budgets and menu development. But all that is pretty set across the restaurants and groups. But every place is different. You can't just go into a place and react because you're only seeing sound bites of what might happen on a particular evening. You can't just walk in and see something and blast them when you don't know what's happened 10 minutes before or what it's responding to. You have to step back a little bit, maybe get into the situation and then blast them! You really have to be careful with that sort of moment. A lot of people, or owners go in and almost like a seagull fly in and then they're out without knowing what happened to get to that point.

And when you're at home, do you cook?

I do cook.

What do you like to cook?

It's a lot simpler. Good grilling. We have a nice balcony and the ability to do that. We rarely go out. It's mostly at home.

You must be travelling a lot, are you?

I do come back to Melbourne a fair bit. This year particularly. And then my wife travels a lot as well.

With all your experience then, what would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef?

When I was in America, all these people were dropping out of their careers or degrees or whatever and paying 80, 90, a hundred thousand dollars at culinary schools. I think it was Anthony Bourdain who said, go and try it first, spend a month, spend a week, spend six months, work 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week, miss parties, miss birthdays, be late for something, because that's essentially it, and see if you really want to do that because that's really where it's at. Especially if you want to keep going. And then, eat out, look at trends. When I started cooking, I didn't have the luxury of having every restaurant in my phone to see what they were doing. It was books, it was newspapers and that was it. And you travelled. I couldn't see what Eleven Madison Park's new dish was or any other amazing restaurant around the world which now I can pull up.

That can be overwhelming though as well, I guess. I had a chat with someone recently about that as well. A lot of the young people coming in are watching all the YouTubers who are doing things. They might have a huge following, but they might not necessarily be right. You have be discerning, don't you?

You don't know what's going on behind that background either. How many people have taken them to that point. There could be 20 people to get to that point of development and prepping and making it for a 20 second video. Because it ain't that easy. I know. I wish it was, but it's not unfortunately.

Would you recommend it?

I would. It's tough, but I would certainly. It takes a certain type of person, whether it be front or back or an owner. You have to be pretty resilient and able to turn on a dime pretty quickly and to react and change the way you speak to handle one person is different to the way you handle another person. Everyone's very different. But definitely. I've enjoyed it. I'm tired. I've been tired for 30 years, but I've enjoyed it.

The Beehive Hotel, Cnr Barkers Road & Church Street, Hawthorn