espresso August 2012

espressofast food & café culture

www.espressomagazine.co.nz | August 2012 | Volume 01 | Issue 04

page 7page 7

Bakels New Zealand Pie Awards page 20Bakels New Zealand Pie Awards page 20

When you can’t hear yourself drink page 10When you can’t hear yourself drink page 10

Café of the month page 12Café of the month page 12

The comeback of the cuppa


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August 2012 | espresso 1

EDITOR: Jane WarwickE: [email protected]

CONSULTING EDITOR: John Clarke

SALES MANAGER:James [email protected]: +64 9 529 3000

ADVERTISING CO-ORDINATOR:Pip MacleanP:+64 9 529 3000 E: [email protected]

DESIGNER:Bex Mikaere

PRODUCTION MANAGER:Fran MarshallP: +64 9 529 3000E: [email protected]

CIRCULATION/SUBSCRIPTIONS:Sue McDiarmid P: +64 9 529 3000E: [email protected]

ACCOUNTANT:Pam King P: +64 9 529 3000E: [email protected]

PUBLISHERToni Myers

MEDIAWEB:Freepost 288, PO Box 5544, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141P: +64 9 529 3000F: +64 9 529 3001E: [email protected]

PREPRESS AND PRINT: PMP Print ISSN – 2253 – 3869

All material published in espresso iscopyright and cannot be reproduced unless written consent is obtainedfrom the publisher and espresso isacknowledged as the source. Opinionsare the authors’ and do not necessarilyrepresent those of Mediaweb.

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Although half of those questioned in a recent survey said they had not changed their dining out habits in light of the current financial crisis, the remainder were being more circumspect and said they were shifting down to a different type of restaurant, choosing restaurants and dining venues that are right for their current situation but still with an emphasis on quality food, according to Restaurant Association chief executive Marisa Bidois. These diners rated quality food as very important when selecting somewhere to eat, while 45 per cent went for affordability. Excellent service was key for 39 per cent of respondents, and around a third favoured a good atmosphere, says the report from the American Express Dining survey.

And 12 per cent said they were dining at less expensive places. This looks like a chance for some cafés and takeaway outlets to lift their game. If there are potential customers out there looking for somewhere cheaper to eat, put up your hand and say please pick me.

If you use the results of the survey as a guide, you might see where you can change right away – quality, affordability, service and a good atmosphere – check, check, check and check – you can mark all those off with a little effort.

It can be done. Melba Café Takapuna’s Sonny Zhou says his client spend is down, yet overall his takings are up on last year. As soon as he noticed the drop in spend he decided he had to work smarter and harder. With the help of good and committed staff he’s not feeling the pinch. A little tired, maybe, but not poorer.

The musician Ricky Skaggs said, “I can't control the wind but I can adjust the sail.” Maybe this is your chance to change tack.

Jane Warwick, Editor.

Editorial

espresso | August 20122

Dean Brettschneider’s new book, Pie, is offered as the definitive pie cook-book by its publishers who say it will unlock the secrets to making a truly melt-in-your-mouth pie. They could be right – Brettschneider has a long history with the pie. His interest, like many Kiwis, began at the school tuck shop and continued when he was apprenticed at the award-winning Rangiora Bakery in North Canterbury, where he won the NZ Apprentice of the Year award.

It has been success after success since then, including teaching and research and development roles and owning his own bakery, the award-winning Windsor Cakes, in Dunedin. And there is so much more including judging the Bakels New Zealand Supreme Pie Awards,

writing columns and books, television and radio appearances and the opening of two micro artisan bakeries – Global Baker Dean Brettschneider Zarbo Bakery (Auckland) and Baker & Spice (Shanghai) – and an artisan bakery, café and food-store in in Singapore, Baker & Cook.

Suffice to say, there is much you can learn from this book. Recipes include meat pies, seafood pies, vegetarian pies and sweet pies, as well as sausage rolls, flans, tarts, shortcakes, pasties, plaits, flammkuchen and whoopee pies. A comprehensive pastry-making section featuring 24 pastry recipes with all the tips and tricks is also included for those serious about mastering pastry.

Penguin Books. RRP$54.99

We have a copy of Pie to give away. Please send your name and address to PO Box 5544, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141 with PIE BY DEAN BRETTSCHNEIDER in the subject line to go into the draw. The winner will be announced in the September issue of espresso magazine.

esespresso shorts

4 Service with a smile; Pizza gets serious; Game on!; Exhibitors jostle for space; Henry paid to Snicker; Strong growth for Domino’s.

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cc café culture

6 Café of the Year The search is on to find the very best café in New Zealand.

Could it be yours?

7 The comeback of the cuppa A successful South Island tea business has turned to innova-

tive measures to survive after being hit hard after last year’s Christchurch earthquakes. Sue Fea reports.

10 When you can’t hear yourself drink Can a noisy café affect your bottom line? A freight train

clattering past on a track 15 metres away has a noise level of around 80 decibels. So does a coffee grinder.

12 Cafe of the Month: Harvest Café Mangawhai The Hairy Canary in Melbourne; the Benson Street Deli in

Remuera crowd. What they have had in common is Kris Malcolm, now turning the Harvest Café into a favourite at Mangawhai.

16 Monin Barista of the Month Sean Kim from Takapuna’s Melba Café spends hours

researching the icons of popular cultures to use on the foam of the coffee he pours.

ff fast foods

18 Something different: KiwiYo The concept is simple – and successful. At KiwiYo store on

the Mission Bay waterfront customers serve themselves any of 10 frozen yoghurt flavours from a machine like those that dispense soft-serve icecream.

19 Bakels New Zealand Pie Awards The huge gathering at The Bakels Supreme Pie Award late

last month showed just how important the pie is to the Kiwi psyche.

23 Morrocan lamb and lentil pie espresso sales manager James Ellis didn’t enter the Bakels, but

reveals his recipe for a winning spicy pie. ___________________________________________

pp pizza pasta

25 Sal’s authentic New York Pizza When Nick Turner and Ciaran McKeever kept running out of

pizza by 7pm, they were pretty sure they were onto a winner. Sal’s authentic New York pizza is exactly that, with all the main ingredients imported from the Big Apple.

28 Wok’n Noodle Chang Woo Lee has sunk his chopsticks deep into the

Auckland scene, celebrating seven years of business in Mt Eden and the opening of a new store in Shortland Street.

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cc chit chat

30 Flatten costs to fatten profits You work hard in your business… but is it delivering the

profit you’d like? ___________________________________________

32 bb blackboard

Contents

GIVEAWAY - PIE, Dean Brettschneider

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THE IDEAL INGREDIENT FOR SATISFIED DINERS

ESP1

101-

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First impressions count. Creating the right atmosphere by dressing like a professional will help your venue succeed. Dress for success. Inspire your guests with confidence by how you and your staff appear.

Call 050 Uniform (0508 643 676) now for your FREE Arrow Uniforms catalogue. Or download a copy - www.arrowuniforms.co.nz

Valentino’s Gelato Auckland Ferry BuildingDowntown Auckland

The Offering – Valentino’s own freshly made Italian style ice cream, gelatos and sorbets in many flavours; breakfasts; bril-liant coffee; and damn fine service.

Located on the ground floor of the Ferry Building, this café is a great space and attracts an eclectic clientele

including large numbers of young people. It is also a favourite of ferry commuters as it is open from early morning to late at night, seven days a week. Many a traveller who has missed a boat on a cold wet evening has taken refuge in Valentino’s. I even bump into the odd one who has also purposely missed the boat, just to sit in the sun sipping a coffee or two on the prom-enade, watching the world go by.

Valentino’s turns over a lot of clients. It needs to as the average spend is not high by hospitality standards – being on average a coffee or a cone. Valentino's does, however, also offer good quality, if standard, breakfasts for commuters.

The star of the show at Valentino’s is the young team – well presented,

courteous, happy and efficient, they make their clients feel welcome no matter how busy they may be. These guys and girls also quickly get to know their regulars and remember exactly how they like their coffee – which is consistently good.

If more cafés and the like had front-of-house staff of this quality and with this attitude, the customers’ experience would be greatly improved in this country.

John Clarke, Mediaweb

Note: In each issue ‘Service with a Smile’ will feature an establishment that excels in service. If you have one that you think rates, please let us know. [email protected]

Service with a smile

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Daniel Murray of Wellington was named the inaugural Domino’s Franchise

Operations Team Member of the Year in the Domino’s Pizza Australia and New

Zealand Rally Awards 2012 in Brisbane, taking out the competition from both

Australia and New Zealand for the top honour. The award is given out to the team

member who has achieved the best and most consistent results in their region

throughout the past 12 months. Murray is pretty passionate about his job saying he

wakes every day excited at the thought of going into work.

“I work with a bunch of the best colleagues you can possibly ask for. I know it’s

a cliché, but I really feel like we are one big family at Domino’s,” he said. Domino’s

ceo Don Meij said being a member of the operations team was a hard job and one

that doesn’t very often get acknowledged so he was pleased Murray scooped the

award. The Dominos Rally aims to boost team spirit and reward the success of

outstanding team members. www.dominospizza.co.nz

Pizza gets serious

Just weeks after space allocations were released for next year’s Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) 93% of the 8000m2 space was booked with many returning exhibitors opting to reserve larger spaces to take advantage of the event. The interest means that additional floor space has had to be opened up via the walkway connecting MICE2013 to the World Barista Championship (WBC) stage area to make way for more exhibitors.

This reflects the success of the inaugural show in May this year and also that the coffee industry Down Under is growing at a staggering rate, said MICE 2013 show director Clint Hendry.

He said exhibitors reported a large volume of sales during and following the inaugural event.

“The Asia Pacific coffee industry shows vast potential for growth, with the quality of coffee continuing to show improve-ment. Experience in this part of the world has proven the theory that consumers are happy to pay more for a better tasting cup of coffee, and will often buy two or three cups in one sitting.”

MICE 2013 is expected to attract an impressive international crowd due to hosting the WBC and World Brewers Cup. Run by World Coffee Events, the competi-tions are the most prestigious in the world, with national champions from over 50 countries competing.

Exhibitors jostle for space

Game on!

Cocktail contenders from all over the country will compete for the R&B Bar Masters – the New Zealand leg of the inter-national Monin Cup competition, at Auckland’s Restaurant & Bar Show this month. The winner will be off to Kuala Lumpur to compete in the global semi-final and if successful there will move on to France, to shake and stir it on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.The 10 finalists are:

• Jack Sotti, 1885, Auckland• Egor Petrov, Agents & Merchants, Auckland• Kyle Levenberg, Suite Bar, Auckland• Benjamin James Quigan, Sabrage Bar, Auckland• Rocky Radovanovich, Red Bar, Auckland• Shannon Sanderson, LaLaLand, Wanaka• Tom Edgie, Motel Bar, Wellington• Sai Hamsala, Bellini Bar, Auckland• James Goggin, Suite Bar, Auckland• Cam Timmins, Mea Culpa, Auckland.

Last year Hannah Walters (ex Mea Culpa) picked up the New Zealand supreme title with a cocktail titled ‘Je Ne C’est Quoi’ – French for ‘I Don’t Know What’.

Head judge this year is international cocktail connoisseur Tomas Vikario, who will work with local judges including Frankie Walker of Lion Nathan and Calem Chadwick of Beam.

The local competition is sponsored by Monin and is one leg of a global competition which sees the world’s leading cocktail shakers competing for the coveted MONIN Cup 2012.

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Domino’s Pizza in New Zealand and Australia achieved strong Same Store Sales (SSS) growth of 6.6%, while Europe recorded growth of 6.3% above last year, rolling over 13.2% and 5.9% respectively, the parent company announced on August 14. All up the corporation realised a $26.9 million 2012 full year net profit after tax, up 25.7% on the previous year. During the 12 months to 1 July 2012, Domino’s Pizza added 24 stores in Australia and New Zealand to its network and 38 stores in Europe. Europe achieved network sales growth of 12.2% while the New Zealand and Australia market achieved growth of 9.1%. Domino’s CEO and MD Don Meij said the solid performance for the 2012 full year was the result of rolling out new products including the improved Classic Crust in Australia and New Zealand.

Strong growth and profits for Domino’s

Love him or loathe him, Paul Henry has a profile and it appears it is high enough to be added to the roll of A-Listers who have featured in Snickers commercials. These include Betty White, Joe Pesci, Aretha Franklin, Liza Minnelli and Joan Collins, who have featured in commercials in more than 56 markets.Snickers ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ uses celebri-ties known for a particular hunger trait, as a metaphor and Henry will portray the hunger state ‘meanness’ which Henry reportedly believes is one of his most endearing traits. “It has never bothered me that people think I’m mean, I’ve always been able to laugh at it. In many ways this campaign is a very good representation of how I see myself,” says Henry. “I think it’s great to see a company recognising human characteristics and putting them under the spot-light for us to have a bit of fun with,” he says. “It’s lovely to be involved in a bit of theatre where people aren’t taking themselves too seriously. I have enjoyed featuring in a campaign that started starring Betty White. It’s something of an honour.”The campaign was developed behind the universal insight that hunger makes a person weak and behave differently ultimately affecting the people around us and the way we perform, says Snickers marketing manager Andrea Aguilar. “What the commercial is trying to convey is that hunger can drastically change your personality. It’s saying that when you’re hungry you’re not on your game and that Snickers is the bar of substance that sorts you out,” says Aguilar. Snickers is one of the world’s biggest selling chocolate bars and one of the top selling bars in New Zealand.

Henry paid to Snicker®

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There are more than 3000 cafés in this country and the search is on to find the very best of the lot.

Entrants for the inaugural New Zealand Café of the Year competi-tion will be judged on appearance, atmosphere, staff, meals and overall experience and at least one dish

on their menu must use both Wattie’s Baked Beans and Kiwi Bacon. The more creative, the better! They will be judged by their customers who will be able to cast a vote by text, online or on Facebook. Fifteen finalists will be chosen on the basis of the most votes gained in each of the five regions – upper, central and lower North Island and upper and lower South Island – that’s three finalists selected from each region.

The regional finalists will then be judged by an expert panel including a highly decorated chef, the Restaurant Association and sponsors, Heinz Wattie’s and Goodman Fielder.

The winning café will be announced in November and will receive media exposure worth over $100,000 through Food in a Minute.

Marisa Bidois, chief executive of the Restaurant Association, says the café culture is a big part of our lives.

“New Zealanders love the ritual of going to their local café,” says Bidois. “Going out with family or friends for Sunday brunch is as part of being Kiwi as the Sunday Roast. No matter if you’re in Putaruru or Penrose, Hokitika or the Hokianga, your café has a chance to win,” she says.

Cafés must register their details at www.nzcafeoftheyear.co.nz by October 18, after which their registration will be validated. All valid registrations will receive a pack with point-of-sale material to help bring the competition to life in the café.

Consumer voting opens on September 1 and closes on October 28, when judging commences. The winning café will be announced in November.

Consumers who vote for a café go in a draw to win the grand prize of $5000 to spend at their own favourite café, plus there’s $1000 for each of the five competition regions.

Here’s an example of how you can use Wattie’s Baked Beans and Kiwi Bacon.

BEAN AND BACON TORTILLASMakes 6 tortillasPrep time 15 min Cooking time 5 mins

Ingredients12 eggs5 rashers Kiwi Middle Bacon, chopped2 x 420g cans Wattie’s Baked Beans240g packet wholegrain tortillas (6)6 tbsp sweet chilli SauceSalt and pepper to taste

Method1. Break eggs into a bowl and whisk together, seasoning with

salt and pepper2. Heat a dash of oil in a frying pan and cook the bacon until

crispy3. Heat baked beans in the microwave or on the stove top4. Heat the tortillas in the microwave according to packet

instructions. Spread a little sweet chilli sauce on one tortilla.5. Heat a dash of oil in a frying pan (approx 10cm diameter). Add

1/6 of the egg mixture and cook over medium heat, lifting the sides with a spatula so that the uncooked egg runs under-neath. When the egg is cooked, slide it onto the tortilla.

6. Spoon 1/6 of the baked beans on 1/3 of the omelette. Top with bacon. Carefully roll the tortilla from the filled side to enclose the filling. Cut in half to serve. Repeat process to make 6 tortillas.

Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and serve.

Café of the yearStuck for a bean/bacon combo idea?


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Photo credit: Jupiterimages

A successful South Island tea business has turned to innovative measures to survive after being hit hard after last year’s Christchurch earthquakes.

The T Shop’s Kim and Martin Phelan have an ever-expanding faithful following supplying 120 delicious hand-packed tea varieties and blends to more than 100 cafés and restaurants around New Zealand, mostly in the South Island.

In 2004 the Dunedin couple opened The T Shop near Dunedin’s Octagon after Kim Phelan, who had worked in healthcare in Melbourne, convinced her husband, who worked in profes-sional theatre, to open a tea business.

“He’d been obsessively passionate about tea for many years,” she says.

In 2007 they expanded the business to Christchurch. However, with the recession hitting hard they decided to close The T Shop in Dunedin several years later and focus solely on Christchurch.

Sue FeaSue Fea



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They were just growing the wholesale and internet arm of their business when Christchurch’s second big earth-quake struck in February last year with devastating consequences.

“We hung in the balance. Our whole life had gone into the business. Four to six weeks after the second quake we put out a plea on our email database saying we didn’t know if we could hang on, but we would at least like to pay our bills to the people we owed.”

Within 24 hours they had been swamped with 350 orders from all over New Zealand.

“It was bizarre because we felt a bit stupid saying we don’t know if we can hang on when businesses were dying left, right and centre,” says Phelan.

“That kept us alive for the next six months. It was people all over New Zealand – it was phenomenal.”

Those customers have kept coming back. The online and wholesale arm of the business has continued to flourish and they now pack their hand-blended teas by the kilo-load for fans all over Christchurch.

“We no longer have a place to be, so we do deliveries all over Christchurch at just $3 for our followers from Merivale Mall and the markets.”

New Zealand product is used if they can source good quality and the lavender, raspberry leaf and green olive leaf is all home-grown.

The best chamomile they’ve sourced comes in from Romania and the tastiest spearmint from Egypt, while their other teas are predominantly imported from Germany, Japan and China.

Most popular are their own blends; Irani Chai – a heavily spiced cinnamon-based black tea with star anise, aniseed, ginger, fennel, cardamom, and Sleepy Time made from lavender, chamomile and raspberry leaf.

There’s been a huge surge in demand

for green and white tea varieties in the past five years, as people steer away from caffeine and look for teas with increased antioxidants, says Phelan.

They even produce a range of Blooming Teas – ornamental teas hand-sewn into a bag. These bloom into ornamental flowers when placed in a glass.

While they wait for Christchurch to be reborn, the Phelans also attend markets, events and shows around New Zealand and the Riccarton House Farmers Market every Saturday.

The earthquakes have cut out their three-day-a-week central Christchurch Arts Centre Market business.

“We would love to see a permanent open-air style market in the style of Victoria Market in Melbourne,” says Phelan.

In the meantime, with a young family and plenty to do there’s little time to sit and sup on a cuppa. But when the time allows Phelan’s favourites are McKenzie Country – a strong breakfast tea blend or Green Tea Royal.

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Contact 09 412 2512 for complimentary samples and wholesale pricing. View our range at www.harneyteas.co.nz

Serve only the best TeaAward Winning tea served in

the fi nest cafés and restaurants around the Globe

• Aff ordable Luxury – increase your tea sales by off ering the best

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ADVERTORIAL

Head over to Melbourne and you’ll be very hard pushed to come across a café that isn’t serving loose leaf tea; great coffee, fantastic baristas, delicious food and they take care of their tea drinkers too. Yet here in New Zealand so many cafés still believe that by charging their customers $3.00 or more for a supermarket tea bag they’re providing great service.

Lisa Goodhart of Harney & Sons often hears “we don’t sell much tea” or “we’re all about the coffee” to try to justify their sad looking teabags grabbed at the local supermarket, she says.

Jukes Espresso in Onehunga Mall has fantastic coffee supreme and great food, so Goodhart was disap-pointed to see Nic wasn’t looking after his tea drinkers who simply stated “but we just don’t sell tea”.

After a discussion about the virtues of Harney & Sons, Nic decided to give Harney a try. The result? Delighted customers, more teas sold and some additional revenue gained through customer orders for Harney’s beautiful retail caddies. “We’re selling more teas and customer feedback has been fantastic. We’ve even got coffee drinkers trying teas. We’re really happy and we love the Harney silken sachets; makes life easy” says Nic.

Often cafés are reluctant to make the change because they’re of the opinion loose leaf is too time consuming, serving and clearing up becomes a pain in the proverbial, not to mention the investment in new teapots, all making the change impractical and expensive.

Harney & Sons silken sachets are the answer to this dilemma – quality loose leaf teas in portion controlled silken sachets that offer the conven-ience of a typical teabag yet the full flavour and goodness of loose leaf teas. They also look incredibly beautiful, says Goodhart. For the traditionalists Harney & Sons carry a wide range of the same loose leaf teas used in the sachets in 200/450gm packs.

Filter coffee served in cafes is a distant memory and perhaps ordinary tea in an old battered pot should be, too. A small investment with Harney & Sons will set you up with a gourmet tea menu, equip your staff with the skills to brew, guide you on presentation and potware and even give you an additional income stream with their beautifully packaged retail collection of fine teas, unlike no other in New Zealand.

A café experience is just that, an experience. We want to feel a little spoiled and have something just that little bit special. Are you still over-looking your tea drinkers? Contact Harney & Sons to discover how serving our award-winning teas crafted with love by an acclaimed master tea blender can enhance your café, delight your customers and increase your profits.

Master Tea Blenders and suppliers to luxury hotels, celebrity restaurants, great cafes and high-end retailers world-wide. Contact Harney today 09 412 2515 harneyteas.co.nz [email protected]

Move over baristas – here’s a chance for tea lovers to show what they can do. The Dilmah Real High Tea Challenge on (Auckland, September 18) is open to professional chefs as well as amateurs, whose mission is to show just what they can produce in the way of a traditional High Tea. The winners will win a trip to the Tea Trails, four 5-star luxurious old bungalows 4000 feet above sea level in the Bogawantalawa Valley, known as the Golden Valley of Tea. Judges include Dilhan Dilmah, Simon Gault, MasterChef Australia guest chef, Peter Kuruvita and Black Hat chef Bernd Uber. For more details and how to enter visit www.realhightea.co.nz.


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When you can’t hear yourself drink

When you can’t hear yourself drink

A freight train clattering past on a track 15 metres away has a noise level of around 80 decibels. So does a coffee grinder. The funny thing is the grinder sounds so much louder, especially when you’re trying to catch a couple of minutes’ peace in a favourite café.

And even though 80 decibels only hovers on the brink of causing hearing damage if the listener is exposed to the sound for too long, the annoyance level is through the roof. Add to that any kitchen noise that filters through – the 80 decibel waste disposal, 90 decibel food processor and the shockwave when the barista smacks the portafilter down on the knock box or someone pushes a chair back on a concrete floor – and sneaking off for a quiet cup of coffee is no longer an option.

Although there has been no great rush by hospitality staff to lodge claims regarding incipient deafness, there have been an increasing number of studies into their environment.

There is currently a noticeable shift to quieter cafés, restaurants and bars with lists of where to find these oases listed on the internet, such as the A-Z of Quiet London, Quiet Conversation Restaurants Los Angeles and even quiet guides to eateries in Rome, that bastion of loud voices and flailing arms.

Part of the reason for this demand for peace is the increasing use of cafés, in particular, as boardrooms or auxiliary office space and avoiding the small children are now very much part of the café scene.

Noise can be good or bad, says Stuart Camp, principal of the Christchurch

Photo credit: Asona

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office of international company Marshall Day Acoustics. “It depends on how the venue wants to portray itself. For instance Lone Star restaurants are very noisy, with talking, music, kids and banging crockery all conducted on a bare wooden floor. But that is part of the ambience of the company, which aims for a quick turnover. The client goes for the food and fast service, not to relax over a romantic dinner. The noisy atmosphere ensures that diners don’t linger and that is fine for Lone Star. One the other hand, Riverstone Restaurant in Oamaru was dismayed to be told by a visitor that they had loved the food and the venue and had hoped to hold their wedding there, but found the ambience too noisy. So a noisy café can very definitely affect your bottom line.

“And,” Camp points out, “New Zealanders as a society tend not to complain – they simply vote with their feet, so chances are you’re not even going to know you lost a customer you could have saved, because of noise.”

As an acoustics consultant, Camp meas-ures noise on a regular basis. He believes that music in cafés should be at such a level that the customer can only hear it when they are listening for it; that it cannot be consciously heard when they are otherwise engaged in reading or conversation.

It is currently popular for cafés to have an industrial look, with polished concrete floors, metal chairs and tables, steel countertops, exposed plumbing and concrete ceilings. All these materials are hard and echo and amplify sound. The sound bounces

off their unforgiving surfaces and makes a strident echo, often dragging exterior noises, such as those from the kitchen, back into the public area.

It is easy and not necessarily expensive to fix this, says Camp, and companies like Asona and Autex can help. Sometimes it can be achieved as easily as putting down a mat or carpet with an underlay of at least 25mm. But if a mat ruins the theme of the café, a wall hanging of a soft material will also work, also at least 25mm thick.

Another way of absorbing sound is to hang acoustic clouds or panels from the ceiling or walls. These can be hung in such a way that they don’t detract from the overall theme of a café or lower the original ceiling.

The easiest way of all to treat your space is to do it in the initial build or refurbish-ment, advises Camp. “Unfortunately interior designers seem to overlook the possibility of noise but if they are addressed in the design stage the cost of acoustic treatment is chicken feed. A refit of $100,000 would probably only cost around $4000-$5000; a new build of $3 million, would probably be about $20,000. If the treatment is put in at the beginning it is mostly unseen, even behind an open metal grill or other perforated metal.”

Sometimes it’s a challenge to find a space big enough to fit or install noise-reducing treatments but even addressing half the space will make a difference. And fixing the main area can greatly affect the auxiliary areas, with kitchen clatter and even the banging around the coffee machine greatly reduced.

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The Café & Restaurant Acoustic Index (CRAI) is a rating system for eating venues according to their acoustic environment and aims to provide the public with the ability to match the type of eating experience they want with the acoustic environment. Go to www.acoustics.org.nz to see if your business has been reviewed.

On the other hand…Now that you’ve got your head – or ears – around the main article here is something else to consider. Recent research by Ravi Mehta, a PhD candidate in marketing at the University of British Colombia, found that a noisy café may be the place to unleash creativity. Mehta found that the equivalent clatter of a reasonably noisy café prompted disfluency in his subjects’ train of thought and this boosted abstract cognition which, in turn, height-ened creativity. So if your café is in an area frequented by creative types, crank the music up a bit and tell them it’s for their own good.


ccCAFÉ OF THE MONTH

Harvest Café – Mangawhai


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The Hairy Canary is a favourite haunt of Melbournians; the Benson Street Deli is a favourite of the Remuera crowd. What they have had in common is Kris Malcolm, now turning the Harvest Café into a favourite at Mangawhai.

Malcolm became aware that the café was up for sale through his partner Katie Poynter’s connection with the next-door garden centre and he was quick to take up the opportunity and move his family – Katie, the then two-year-old Ailyah and Toby the dog – to the seaside village.

“It is one of the best moves I’ve ever made,” he says. “For the first time I actually get to interact with the diners. Although I cook, I’m no longer stuck in the kitchen and I can come out and meet my customers and really find out just what they want. Even though the hours are long and I probably get less time off than when I was cooking for someone else, I still really enjoy it. It is fun.”

The hardest part of starting up the


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new café, he says, was changing the attitude of his potential clients, who had moved on to other cafés that they believed to be better. He closed the existing café for a week, repainted, refur-bished and changed the name from the Naja Garden Centre café to the Harvest Café. The result is a light and airy space, with good natural light from a curve of bay windows at one end and large panes at the other.

A large hatch behind the counter allows Malcolm to see out and interact with customers at the same time allowing him to be private and free of distractions when he needs to be concentrating on the job in hand.

The easiest part was changing his lifestyle and planning the menu.

Malcolm thought there was probably no way around an all-day breakfast option, particularly in the summer, when Mangawhai is a huge draw for holidays-makers. On holiday, Malcolm realised, people slept late and breakfasted late, so it might be midday when they rolled out of bed, but it was still breakfast they were looking for,

not a lunch salad. And, of course, in the summer people party late in the long evenings and nothing fixes the morning after the night before like a serving of eggs benedict. And it is the faithful eggs bennie that is the most popular item on his menu, Malcolm confirms. His take on the dish – honey-glazed bacon, hash browns, soft poached eggs and homemade hollandaise on English split muffins – is followed closely in popularity by lamb’s fry and bacon – lamb’s fry, bacon and mushrooms in a creamy port reduction. Another dish that is becoming a favourite is banana bread, toasted, and served with fruit compote and honey labne, that creamy Middle Eastern drained yoghurt cheese.

Malcolm says making sure the favourites are available gives him quite a margin to experi-ment with other dishes. “When someone comes in for breakfast when they’re tired or hungover, they want comfort food. They want eggs done most ways, eggs bennie, toast or maybe a big bowl of muesli. They don’t want some-thing they haven’t tried before. Those who have breakfast out as a treat, usually are up for trying

something different. So I have the tried and true items on the menu that the customer trusts and that will always get a sale. Then I have the different items and this is where I can have fun and experiment. On the break-fast menu this is something like roasted field mushrooms served with feta cheese and red wine vinegar on sourdough.”

The lunch menu also has sure-to-please favourites such as Caesar salad and spiced wedges and includes a cajun chicken salad with mango, kumara chips, tomato.

The Harvest menu changes around every four months and during the summer months an evening tapas menu is offered Thursday-Saturday from 6pm until late. The café seats around 60, is fully licensed and serves local wines and Mike’s Organic Beers.

Malcolm tries to buy as much of his produce as possible from local suppliers with the exception of specialty products that can only come from their individual source such as Mike’s Organic Beers, Malcolm’s beer of choice which comes from Taranaki.


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Harvest – 198 Molesworth Drive – Mangawhai Heads. Ph: 09 431 4111.

www.najagarden.co.nz

“It’s not too hard to purchase locally, as the area is full of food producers,” he laughs. “The problem is not getting carried away.”

Currently, the café so consumes him that Malcolm gets few breaks, but that will soon change with the imminent arrival of a second child, when he has vowed that he will be more generous to himself in regards to time off.


ccBARISTA OF THE MONTH

Sean Kim is charmingly off-hand about his artistic ability in the foam of the coffee he pours. He waves away any praise, seeing his skill only as a way of engaging the customer. He spends hours researching the icons of popular culture and more time practicing the drawing of them.

When he is satisfied he adds the image to his repertoire and then the customer might find, looking into their cup for that first sip, an Angry Bird or the sweetly gormless face of Sid the Sloth from the Ice Age movies looking back.

Kim first worked in cafes part-time as a student as he studied for a career as an hotelier, graduating and following that path for three years. But the more he saw baristas laughing, talking and interacting with their customers, the more he thought that was where he really wanted to be. Coffee is more friendly, he says. You greet customers as if they were friends, it is very sociable. He began his new career at Altura in Albany on Auckland’s North Shore and credits the compa-ny’s founder, Chris White, as the person who taught him all about being a barista. “Chris was my master – everything I know about coffee, I learned from him,” he acknowledges.

After three years at Altura, Kim’s good friend Bobby Zhou bought the Melba franchise in Takapuna, also on Auckland’s North Shore. Although Kim was happy at Altura, here was a chance for him to not only help his friend succeed in his new venture but also widen his own experience. Altura was a large outfit with a high turnover, roasting its own beans on site and running a big kitchen and restau-rant. Melba was infinitely smaller and Kim was interested to see what the difference was.

In many ways it was not so very different at all. Proportionately it was as busy as Altura but although Kim was on first name terms with many of those customers, somehow that familiarity was even easier at Melba. Perhaps it was purely a spatial thing – the smaller area of

A good barista educates the customer – about flavour, about strength, about, for example, the temperature of the brew and why it cannot be too hot or the milk will burn. But ultimately the customer is always right.

Sean KimMelba Café – Takapuna

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Melba makes the dining and waiting for takeaways more cheek by jowl? Whatever the answer, for now Melba is very much where Kim likes to be.

Kim’s froth art is a way of making coffee more exciting, he says. His regular customers look forward to seeing what adorns their cup that day and some even have their favourites.

Creamy espresso with good textured milk – particularly full-fat blue-top - is the best ‘canvas’ to draw on. Kim must draw quickly before the coffee cools and because for every cup poured there is usually another waiting to be done, so there is no time to dawdle over cartoons. Using an etching tool he sourced from the Internet, he deftly draws an elephant, a sleepy cat, a silver fern with Olympic rings and Go NZ, a dolphin, a dog, a bear, a frog, Hello Kitty, that Angry Bird and dear old Sid. The easiest one takes around 20 seconds and to see how deftly Kim does these makes even those who consider themselves adroit to suddenly feel quite cack-handed.

Not every customer gets an embellished coffee. Even moving quickly, orders would soon build up at the busiest time if Kim trimmed every cup. However, says Kim, you would be surprised at just who likes their froth to be decorated and it’s often people who seem the most serious who are the most amused.

“It makes me happy, too, when the customer gets a kick out of one of my drawings. It’s another way of making a connection with them. Melba has lots of regular customers. Most people are set in the way they have their coffee and I like that I can look up as someone comes in the door and by the time they get to the counter I am already making their coffee. I usually know by the time of day whether they’re going to drink it here or take it away and so I can get the right container lined up as well.”

It is four o’clock on the nose; the vacuuming has been done, some chairs have been lifted, it’s time to close. The door opens and a man puts his head around the corner. Sean looks up and smiles “Hi John,” he says. “The usual…?”

18

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Yoghurt has been around for at least 2000 years appearing in almost every culture. In the 1970s American dairy giant HP Hood bought out what is thought to be the first frozen yoghurt, which it called Frogurt. For New Zealanders, the next great evolution was down along Tamaki Drive in Auckland’s Mission Bay at KiwiYo.

Owners Norman & Nadine Markgraaff and Chantal & Franswa Janssen based the concept on the international brands Yogurtland, Tutti Frutti and Yogen Fruz but believed that their combined skills of brand development, marketing and promotion would mean a superior product to the American offering.

They opened their flagship store on Tamaki Drive on the Mission Bay waterfront in late 2011 and it didn’t take long for their instincts

to be proved correct. The concept was a hit and they were soon being asked when

another outlet would open, particu-larly in the Eastern Suburbs.

Something Different

KiwiYo – Mission Bay


Photo credit: Tyler Warwick

ffThe idea took shape and KiwiYo will open in Botany Downs on September 1.

The concept is simple – customers fill a cup or cone with any or a combination of 10 frozen yoghurt flavours, dispensing the desert themselves from a machine like those that dispense soft-serve icecream. Each machine serves two flavours, individually from dispensers on either side or as a mix through a dispenser in the middle. An elec-tronic message board above each bay gives the details of the particular flavour such as its ingredients, food value and calorie count.

From the dispenser the customer goes to a counter offering a wide variety of toppings ranging from pure indulgence to right up there with the healthy foods where you can quite liter-ally go nuts… or granola, or muesli, or fresh fruit.

The more decadent toppings include sweet treats such as chocolates, Jaffas, jubes, pineapple lumps, Crunchy bar, Pebbles – the usual suspects.

Next the customer weighs what they have served themselves to see how much they have to pay. The cost is $2.50 per 100 grams. Janssen says that this concept, unfamiliar to the New Zealand market, caused consterna-tion sometimes at the weighing machine. Kiwis, she discovered, had more than a passing partiality for Mt Everest.

“We opened with only one American-sized cup/bowl. This particular cup/bowl is designed large in diameter to enable a person to put numerous yoghurt flavours into one cup without them becoming a ‘multi-flavoured mix’. It was also deep enough to add a good selection from our toppings bar which offers a selection of over 50 choices of fruit, candies, nuts and other

goodies and then finally topped off with a sauce from the sauce bar. We soon learnt that unlike the Americans, the Kiwi-way was to fill the bowl to resemble Mt Everest. Needless to say this led to some interesting moments at the weigh and pay station, so we introduced a small- as well as a regular-size cup to sit alongside our traditional large cup, now giving customers peace of mind that even if they overfill their cup, they will not overspend their budget.”

In a smart marketing move a self-triggered camera has been installed on the back wall. Customers can take a photo of themselves and their KiwiYo creation, which is automati-cally uploaded onto the KiwiYo Facebook page. With the younger generation living technology-led very public lives, this has been a great hit with having a photo taken at KiwiYo currently being one of ‘the’ things to do socially, among the middle teens especially. It has proved a very easy way for KiwiYo to get out in the public arena.

And if they were perhaps still unsure of their success, the team needs only watch those they have identified as their competi-tion, come in and spy out the setup. “It amuses us to see them with their video cameras and telescopic lens filming and photographing everything in the shop from the toppings, machines, labels and even our photo booth,” she laughs.

Now that the hard work, the setting up of the concept, has been achieved, Janssen says they are having fun. “It’s easy to have fun when everyone who comes in is excited and full of energy, vibrancy and joy. They’re excited to try it out, they love doing it them-selves. Their excitement is catching and it

has made working at KiwiYo the easiest and most enjoyable task.”

KiwiYo – 95 Tamaki Drive, Mission Bay, Auckland.

Ph: 09 521 6996, www.kiwiyo.co.nz www.facebook.com/kiwiyonz

Go to www.kiwiyo.co.nz to find out about a KiwiYo franchise.

Janssen says the KiwiYo product represents the cutting-edge of dry-mix soft-serve frozen yoghurt. She explains that most dry mix products cannot be called "yoghurt" as the required culture dies in storage. However, KiwiYo product has encapsulated the yoghurt culture so that it becomes active only when recon-stituted with water. This unique manufacturing step allows for KiwiYo frozen yoghurt to provide approximately one million live colonies of lactobacillus per gram. With this innovation, the health benefits of this yoghurt are second-to-none, and provide excellent nutritional value. KiwiYo is non/low fat, gelatin free, gluten free, low in calories, egg free, has no table sugar, no poultry by-products and no chemicals. Its colours are FDA (US) approved for healthy consumption and the product fits the dietary requirements of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus.


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The huge gathering at The Bakels Supreme Pie Award late last month showed just how important the pie is to the Kiwi psyche.

There were 4500 entries from 444 bakeries – more submissions than ever before – and the quality of pastry and the inventiveness of the fillings only reinforced just how increasingly serious entrants are about the contest and how strongly they recognise the value both personally and professionally that a Bakels Pie Award can bring to their business. Fillings included such exotic delights as Balinese coconut chicken; Asian beef with shitake and star anise; chicken, cranberry and camembert;

sweet Moroccan lamb; crab, prawn, scallops and vegetables in white sauce; caramelised pork belly with coriander; and curried mutton with coriander.

The public are also taking these awards seriously and the media presence at the event was significant with Tamati Coffey - TVNZ, Annabelle White - food editor, NZ Woman’s Weekly, Graeme Hill - Radio Live and Natasha Utting - Campbell Live taking to the stage to present awards. Comedian Dai Henwood MC’d the Bollywood-themed event so clearly the New Zealand pie has come of age.

The growing number of cafes producing their own signature pies

Bakels New Zealand Pie Awards

Helena Robben receives the inaugural Boutique Pie award


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inspired a new category this year – café boutique – although these entries did not qualify to be the Supreme Pie Award winner. Bakels executive chairman, Duncan Loney said the café boutique entries did not have the same limitations – other than a maximum weight – as the other categories so that the chefs could be completely creative. These chefs did not even have to make their own pastry so the category was difficult to judge in the Supreme Pie Category where the rest of the pies were all baked in tins and were much more standardised. It was therefore decided the café boutique group would stand alone.

Loney, who was also a judge, said that the bar was being raised all the time, with each year’s entries outdoing the previous. “It’s becoming quite hard to judge in the majority of cases,” he said. “The standard is getting better and better right across the board making it a very close run contest. The standard this year was just astounding. There was such a range of innovative fabulous fill-ings this year. Now you can buy any pie you like. Such innovation is great for the

whole industry and shows great enter-prise from our bakers.” “We used to send around ten pies through for final tastings and now we send 20 or more,” says Chief Judge Dennis Kirkpatrick of Jimmy’s Pies in Roxburgh. “I think the prestige of these awards has led to a huge increase in the standard of New Zealand pies.” Kirkpatrick was one of 18 judges who spent a day described as ‘mammoth’ earlier in July, evaluating pies blind-coded into 12 categories including mince and gravy; steak, vegetables and gravy; steak and cheese; chicken and vegetables; gourmet meat; vegetarian; bacon and egg; mince and cheese; gourmet fruit; seafood; and commercial wholesale and the new café boutique classification.

The winners are nearly always the people who enlist help in the creation of the pie. Just being able to do pastry doesn’t make you a winner.

Judge


The Gold Award winnersMince & Gravy: Hong Kheng Huor, Whenuapai Bakehouse & Café, Whenuapai , Auckland;

Steak, Vegetables & Gravy: John van den Berk, John’s Bakery and Café, Hastings;

Chicken & Vegetable: Patrick Lam, Patrick’s Pie Group Ltd, Tauranga;

Gourmet Fruit: Shane Kearns, Viands Bakery, Kihikihi, Te Awamutu;

Gourmet Meat: Jason Hay, Richoux Patisserie; Ellerslie, Auckland;

Vegetarian: David Liem, Greenland Bakery & Café, Botany Town Centre, Auckland

Bacon & Egg: Tan Kiet Trang, Cherrywood Café, Otumoetai, Tauranga

Mince & Cheese: Nap Ly, Target Bakehouse, Pukekohe

Steak & Cheese: Chris Dockrill, French Bakery, Christchurch

Seafood: Lam Ho, Paetiki Bakery, Taupo

Commercial Wholesale: Paul Barber, Goodtime Foods, Onekawa, Napier

Café Boutique: Helena Robben, Rob’s Patisserie, Freemans Bay, Auckland

Supreme: Shane Kearns, Viands Bakery, Kihikihi

Staying true to fresh produce and flavours is the key to success say the winners of the Bakels Supreme Pie Awards, Shane and Kathy Kearns of Viands Bakery in the Waikato town of Kihikihi.

It is advice worth heeding because it is the second year in a row the couple has won the top prize and, for the second year in a row, it was for a rather special fruit pie. Last year it was spiced plum, port and apple and this year they won with a gingered peach and Cointreau creation.

The Kearns entered all ten categories and said they were really happy with every pie they put up. Their confidence was also rewarded in the seafood category where they won a silver medal with a scallop, shrimp, prawn, sweet chili and coriander pie. Winning was a “huge boost” for Viands last year. Kearns said they doubled turnover in the first week after the win and enjoyed a 30% increase in turnover year-on-year, which has held throughout 2012 so far.

Supreme winner

In pioneer times the pie case was often divided into two by a pasty barrier and filled with meat on one side and apple on the other. The meat side was eaten for lunch and the apple side saved for afternoon tea.

Pie Trivia

Helena Robben worked secretly perfecting her entry for the inaugural Café Boutique category, not even telling her husband she had even entered until she was happy with the result. He had wondered why she was suddenly serving her family so much pork belly; she told him it was because it was cheap. Her subterfuge paid off when her caramelised pork belly with coriander creation scooped the gold in the new class. It was fitting that Robben won the inaugural event as it was also the first time she had entered the awards.

Boutique Pie

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Method1. Heat a small frying pan over medium

heat and cook the pine nuts, stirring, for 2 minutes or until lightly toasted. Transfer to a small bowl.

2. Place the lamb in a bowl, add the flour and toss to coat. Heat a little oil in a heavy-based frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the lamb and cook, stirring often, for 6 minutes or until light brown. Transfer the lamb to a heatproof bowl.

3. Reduce heat to medium and add remaining oil to pan. Add onion and cook till translucent, add ginger garlic paste and cook well. Return lamb to pan with stock, tomatoes, cumin, ground coriander, fresh coriander and sugar. Stir in chopped apricots or dates. Season with salt and pepper. In another pan cook the garbanzo beans and lentils with turmeric, cumin, salt and pepper. Sprinkle a little lemon juice and fresh coriander.

4. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer gently for 1½ hours or until lamb is tender. Increase heat to medium and cook for a further 10-15 minutes or until sauce reduces to a thick gravy. Taste and adjust seasoning. Stir in pine nuts, lemon rind and lemon juice. Cook the beans and lentils till

soft or even slightly mashed. Transfer the lamb filling and beans & lentil mix to separate bowls and set aside for 10 minutes. Cover and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool.

5. Pre-heat oven to 220°C. Lightly flour a clean dry surface and use a rolling pin to roll out the block of puff pastry, brush a pie mould with butter and line with pastry and use a small sharp knife or a fork to prick the pastry. Spare some pastry for the topping.

6. Spoon the cooled curried lamb filling into the pastry base and top with bean and lentil mix. Top with puff pastry and use a pastry brush to lightly brush the edge of the pie with a little cold water. Gently press the edges together to seal without pressing outer edge.

7. Use a small sharp knife to cut a 4cm cross in the centre of the pastry top and then brush the top lightly with the whisked egg. Sprinkle evenly with the cumin seeds.

8. Place the pie plate on a baking tray and bake in oven for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 190°C and cook for a further 20-25 minutes or until the pastry is well puffed and golden, and the filling is heated through. Serve hot!

Moroccan lamb & lentil pie

Ingredients (serves 4)Plain flour, to dust1 400g block frozen shortcrust pastry, thawed Melted butter, to grease1 egg, lightly whisked1 tsp cumin seeds

Filling:• 2 tbsp pine nuts• 700g lean lamb shoulder, cut into 3cm

pieces• 2 tbsp plain flour• 60ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil• 1 brown onion, roughly chopped• 250ml (1 cup) good-quality beef stock• 200g garbanzo beans• 200g brown lentil (rinsed)• 1 400g can whole Italian tomatoes, drained,

roughly chopped• ½ tbsp ginger garlic paste• 1 tsp finely grated lemon rind• ¼ tsp ground turmeric• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice• 2 tsp ground cumin• 1 tsp ground coriander• 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander• ½ tsp sugar/honey• ½ tsp kosher salt• 50g diced dried apricots/dates• Freshly cracked black pepper

James EllisSales Manager


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When Nick Turner and Ciaran McKeever kept running out of pizza by 7pm and having to shut their Commerce Street store early in the face of some increasingly vexed customers, they were pretty sure they were onto a winner.

That was two stores ago and today, sitting in Sal’s third outlet in Takapuna, a week after opening a Parnell branch and via a Karangahape Rd site, Turner reckons he and McKeever can finally start spending more time on the business rather than on the floor.

Sal’s authentic New YorkPizza - Auckland

Sal’s authentic New YorkPizza - Auckland

Phot

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edit

: Tyl

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ick

PIZZA OF THE MONTH

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espresso | August 201226 espresso | August 201226

Sal’s Authentic New York Pizza is exactly that – all the main ingredients are imported from the Big Apple so that Turner and McKeever have a product that is currently unique to this market.

It was over a decade in the making. It is not a long story but to make it even shorter it goes like this. McKeever knew Salvatore Leo, the owner of the original Sal’s in the New York neighbourhood of Queens; Leo once told McKeever that if he ever wanted to set up his own pizzeria, Leo would give him some recipes; McKeever met Turner and ten years later, after one of those New Year’s Eve partys that demands something solid in your stomach the morning after, the two wound up at Sal’s. Turner was converted, McKeever remembered Leo’s offer and the rest is history.

It wasn’t an easy start up. Neither Turner nor McKeever knew anything about the food business, which Turner says was both a strength and a weakness. It meant that the opening of that first store was delayed, but it also meant they learned some valuable and

enduring lessons about business.Leo’s son Brian came to New Zealand

to help them set up and train staff. But first there was one important factor – New York’s water supply. Twice as many people live in New York than in the whole of New Zealand with the resultant pollution but despite that the city’s water supply is fabled for its purity. In fact, many award-winning food and beverage producers in the city cite New York’s water as their magic ingredient. , and this included Leo. So Turner used some of his valuable luggage allowance to lug five litres, which weighs around five kilos, of New Zealand water to New York for the taste test. Who knows what might have happened if the trial had failed, but luckily New York ingredients mixed with New Zealand water, produced exactly the type of pizza crust that Sal’s was famous for, a good strength of dough that baked crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Sal’s Authentic New York Pizza in Auckland was about to become a reality. Apart from some sausage meats (not the meatball or

pepperoni, but strict import restrictions means importing some meats would be an expense that Turner is loath to pass onto the customer) and the water, all of the ingredients in a Sal’s New Zealand pizza are direct from New York. It is a huge undertaking says Turner, and not everyone appreciates the importance or the inimitable taste, but it means they have a serious and genuine point of difference. And you’re only as good as your last pizza, he points out, so what he and McKeever believe is another crucial distinction is the training they give to their pizza makers. ”It’s not like teaching someone to make a sandwich. It takes serious time to learn the Sal method and this is what distinguishes a good pizza from a great pizza. And each pizza has to hold the same values; this is not negotiable. The pizza market is growing and even when we first opened we banked on the fact that our product was not only authentic, it was consistent.”

Brian Leo – the Roger Federer of pizza making, laugh Turner and McKeever, once semi-professional tennis players – is hugely involved in staff training methods. “In the early


Those early days were also a lesson in customer service. Most complaints are genuine and the customer is right 99% of the time, reckons Turner. You can’t be afraid to tell the customer you’ve made a mistake and will fix it or attempt to, he says. In those early days customer service included paying the parking violation tickets of those who, through lack of metered parking, had to pull up on the double yellow lines outside the store to pick up their order.


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Spaghetti and Orzo.p g e d

Made in Italy Imported by

Prodotti d’ ItaliaAVAILABLE AT LEADING FOOD DISTRIBUTORS

Available in 500g and 3kg packs.

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Sal’s Authentic New York Pizzas are a whopping 18” across and cost $28-$32. They include Sal's Legendary Sauce & Premium Wisconsin Mozzarella, Real New York Pepperoni, Famous New York Meatball, Italian Style Sausage, Chicken Breaded Cutlet & Fresh Tomato and Veggie Garden Fresh Capsicum & Mushroom. Extra toppings include Pepperoni, Meatball, Italian Sausage, Chicken, Mushroom, Olives, Onion, Capsicum and Extra Cheese at $4 each. All pizzas can be ordered half-and-half. Beverages include water, soft drinks and beer by the glass or pitcher.

Sal’s Authentic New York Pizza outlets are currently Auckland-based in Commerce Street (CBD), Karangahape Road, The Strand (Takapuna) and Heather Street (Parnell). All open from 11:30am and close depending on area between 9pm and midnight. www.sals.co.nz

days we had to take pizza makers as we found them, and there were some very good ones, but we prefer to train them from scratch, if we can. I believe Sal’s method is best.” Leo Junior is also a strict pizza quality controller.

Turner and McKeever took their time over choosing a location for their flagship store. They wanted it where there was a mix of other very good bars and restaurants, as well as good foot traffic from surrounding offices and busi-nesses during the day, and from clubbers and bar visitors at night. They believed that if they were surrounded by proven and popular food and beverage outlets, the potential customer would automatically assume that Sal’s, too, would be a quality provider. This is how they wanted to be perceived right from the start, says Turner, as a proven performer. But this immediate perception meant that Sal’s actually did have to be good right from the start and this was all the impetus the two needed to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Even after they ran out of pizza and had to close at 7pm, they remained in the building, rolling out as much dough as they could store in the tiny

22sqm store, often working until 2am.Excitement and adrenalin carried them

through and they had local encouragement from the start. Word spread and within three months they had reached that crisis of supply. The building beside them was being reno-vated and there was now an empty space right next door that was four times bigger than the pokey little kitchen they were currently standing in. In spite of the long hours they were having fun and that, combined with a gut feeling, encouraged them to risk taking on another lease so early in the game. It more than paid off and Turner and McKeever have never looked back.

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ppThe easiest thing about my business is that I like it. I like it so much that it helps me to overcome any obstacles or problems. I don’t think of this as work. It was the very right

concept for me – I am outgoing and a little bit loud and I love to talk to people. The

hospitality industry is perfect for me.

Wok’n Noodle

One noodle bar has sunk its chopsticks deep into the Auckland scene, celebrating seven years of business in Mt Eden and the opening of a new store in Shortland Street, just up the hill from Auckland’s main thoroughfare, Queen Street.

So far that hill is Chang Woo Lee’s only drawback, but it is a problem that is solving itself as the word has spread and more and more people are climbing towards Wok’n Noodle. The new outlet is light and airy, with a polished concrete floor, long communal benches of blonde wood lined with polished metal industrial-style stools. One wall is wood-paneled and the other painted, with a long mirror stretching from front to back, and the pipes running under the ceiling are exposed. It is a contempo-rary look. On the tables are tumblers of chopsticks with forks and spoons for the chopstick-challenged.

Lee came from his native Korea to study for a business degree, working the hours allowed on his student visa within the hospitality industry. He is an energetic and outgoing man and the social interaction of the hospitality scene suited him very well, so much so that when he was planning his future it was in this direction that he cast his thoughts.

He noticed that New Zealanders enjoyed Asian cuisine of all types and knew that he probably couldn’t go wrong opening a restaurant, even though he wasn’t a cook. He thought the food industry had high potential, that it could be hard work but was always stayable – people always needed to eat. But he knew he needed an edge – he knew he could be a success with a restau-rant that provided good reliable food and service but he wanted to be a grand success and so he needed a good point of difference and he needed to build a strong brand.

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He did a lot of research – a LOT of research, he reiterates, and he found out something else. Of all the Asian cuisine New Zealanders liked, there were two things they were particularly fond of – noodles and Thai fare.

There he had the basis of a concept that might give him an advantage over other Asian food outlets. He was, he laughs, ready to rock ’n roll, which is where he got his

Wok’n Noodle brand, as a kind of play on words.

He talked to bona fide Thai chefs, learned the

basics of Thai cooking and discussed recipe ideas with them. In the beginning he did all the cooking himself and it worked, but now he employs a professional Thai chef

because, after all, he states, he is not.

Lee says his hardest task was getting the idea out there. It was difficult to introduce the fusion because although people would accept Thai cuisine with their noodles, many more wouldn’t accept noodles with their Thai. It turned into a bit of a waiting game – continually putting the idea out and then anticipating a return. There were a few anxious months when he seemed to wait in vain, although he had nevertheless quickly grown a core clientele. And then, of course, it took off as these things often do.

Wok’n Noodle has a set menu and an auxiliary one that can change at any time. This supporting menu allows Lee to try out new dishes and also take advantage of seasonal produce.

Although there are obvious favourites of the New Zealand palate – calamari with oyster sauce or curry paste and zucchini, carrot, mushroom, onion, coriander and bok choy on rice or with thick noodles; pork or chicken green curry; Pad Thai – other dishes come and go in popularity. “Sometimes we

sell, perhaps, the warm vegetable salad in such quantity that we up our vegetable order only to find that the next week everyone has moved on. I like to think this is because my customers are eager to try out everything on the menu and so move onto the next dish, but really, I think it is really something else, something undefinable. It makes it inter-esting, though,” he laughs.

Lee has a lot of pride in his product. He is adamant that there must always be a focus on service and that although he runs a simple café-style dining room that also has a strong takeaway custom, he tries to treat his customers as if they were in a restaurant. He also accepts orders online, which has worked particularly well for lunches when diners have limited time.

He works long hours but likes it so much that on his Tuesdays off, he still comes into the shop. Otherwise he is really involved in his Cross Fit training programme, which for a man of his joie de vivre is a good way of working off some surplus energy.

Wok’n Noodle – 51-53 Shortland Street, Auckland Central – Ph: 09 358 0088.

Mon – Fri Lunch: 11am-3pm; Dinner: 5pm-10pm. Sat-Sun Dinner: 5pm-10pm

www.woknnoodle.com

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Flatten costs to fatten profitsYou work hard in your business… but

is it delivering the profit you’d like?


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In a competitive, price conscious market, one of the very best ways to achieve profit is through tight cost controls (especially labour).

If you’re being squeezed on price you need to be confident that you can make a profit at the price you’re charging. The place to start with pricing right is knowing the ‘true cost’ of your product or service. This is an issue we see often in our work with business owners… they’re so busy doing everything that they don’t keep track of costs and suddenly find they’re selling at a loss!

If you can’t make a gross profit from busi-ness, it follows you’re not going to make a decent net profit, and possibly going to make a loss if overheads are out of control too.

Managing cost structure is one of the best ways to improve profit as it has the biggest impact on net profit.

For example:If a business turns over say $5 million and the Costs are 70%, you’ve got a gross profit of $1.5m to cover overheads and hopefully leave a net profit. If you can reduce costs to say 65% – that would deliver an extra $250,000 onto gross profit, which would mostly likely all go straight to the bottom line. This would be quite difficult to achieve with increased sales or reduced overheads, as extra sales carry extra costs.

Costs are often referred to as direct costs, cost of sales or variable costs. These differ from overheads, which occur all the time whether you sell anything or not.

For a product-based business Costs includes:• Purchase price of product• Currency fluctuations, if importing• Freight to get goods into store• Storage costs.

For a service-based business Costs include the above, if materials are involved, plus:

• Labour• Travel to get to jobs• Rework.

Once you know what all the costs are, you can quote with confidence that you will make a profit.

Once you’ve won the quote, it’s time to deliver, hopefully in line with your expec-tations. This is where things can get out of hand, if not tracked carefully. It can be very difficult to achieve this without systems in place to help.

Measuring in business is vital to profit. There are lots of things you can measure, but if you just do one thing, measure costs.

The best way to measure costs is to set up your accounting and operational systems right. In your accounts system it’s vital to separate Costs and Overheads. Items like purchase of products, freight in, storage costs, labour on jobs, should be separated from overheads. This enables you to keep track of your gross margin percentage.

Measuring percentages makes it easier to see changes and trends more quickly. By only looking at dollars it’s too easy for things to get ‘out of whack’ and fail to see trends. For example:

If your sales in Year 1 are $1m and costs are $700,000 – you’ve got a gross margin of 30%. In Year 2, if sales are $2m and costs are $1,500,000 – you’ve got a gross margin of only 25%. Your gross profit dollar figure has gone up but your gross margin percentage has gone down. Then you’ve got overheads to cover which also eat into your profit.

You can end up selling more… but making less money! We see this often in growing businesses where there are suddenly more people and transactions to manage. It’s vital to have good systems in place to ensure you end up with a profit from all your hard work.

If you’re in a service-based business then a job management system is vital. In growing serviced-based businesses, we often see jobs going uninvoiced, labour

not being recovered, labour staff doing too much unbillable time, over invoicing from contractors, jobs where not all labour and materials are invoiced, retentions not being invoiced, etc. Imagine the value of these omissions!

The cost of a good system would pale into insignificance compared to the value of avoiding these mistakes.

Another issue with costs is not under-standing the difference between margins and markups.

Costing and pricing is a key area in tenders and it must be correct and commercially attractive. A prevalent problem is getting simple mathematics wrong.

When pricing a tender, companies start with quantities and costs for materials and labour, (eg, construction, tradespeople, software etc.) A mark-up is added to the cost, eg, a cost base of $1000 plus 40% equals a sell price of $1400.

Where does this fall down? Answer: the Gross Margin is less than 28.6%!

It falls down in the language and assump-tions. The boss says the Job Margin target is 15% (common in construction and related industries), staff use this figure and slot it into the mark-up %.

The actual margin then drops to 13.1%.With actual cost blowouts in delivery, the

margin often ends up less than 10%; some-times down to low single digit percentages. You then have to pay overheads and hope-fully end up with a profit for shareholders.

CAD Partners CFO On-Call is a team of financial and business advisors who work with open-minded people committed to business growth and achieving success. For help call us on 1300 36 24 36-Australia; 0800 180 400 New Zealand, or visit our websites www.CFOonCall.com.au / www.cfooncall.co.nz.

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2012–Served–All Year

Marketevents

2013 Marketevents

May7-9 SIAL CHINA 2013

Shanghai

18-21National Restaurant Association (United States) Show 2013 Chicagowww.restaurant.org

If you have an event you’d like us to highlight just email

[email protected] with the details.

August1-31 Auckland Restaurant Month

big l itt lecity.co.nz

10-26 Wellington On a Platewww.we l l ingtononaplate.co m

27 NZ Food AwardsAuckland www.foodawards.co.nz

27 The Marlborough Wine ShowEntries open www.wineshow.co.nz

October

5-9Anuga, Cologne, 'Taste the Future', the world's largest food and beverage fair and leading food fair for the retail trade and the food service and catering marketwww.an uga.co m

20 FEAST Gisbornewww.feastgisborne.co.nz

20"it" Bay of Islands Food & Wine Festival Paihiawww.paihianz.co.nz/it–festiva l/

21-25 SIAL 2012, Paris, The World's 'Number 1 Food Exhibition'. www.sia l paris .co m

September

14-16The Food Show Christchurch 2012 Canterbury Arena www.foodshow.co.nz

25-27Foodtech PacktechAuckland, ASB Showgrounds. www.foodtechpacktech .co.nz

272012 NZ Food Awards gala dinner – Auckland www.foodawards.co.nz

November

11-10Food & Wine ExpoAuckandwww.foodan dwineexpo.co.nz


HELP US FIND NEW ZEALAND’S BEST CAFÉ AND WIN!

For full terms and conditions visit www.nzcafeoftheyear.co.nz

*Votes by the public and judging by a designated panel determine the winner.

CAFÉ LOVERSVote for your favourite café in the New Zealand Café of the Year competition, and you’ll go into the draw to win a share in over $10,000 worth of prizes!

Simply visit www.nzcafeoftheyear.co.nz to cast your vote. Voting closes October 28th 2012.

CAFÉ OWNERSEnter the New Zealand Café of the Year competition, and you could win a media package with Food in a Minute for your café worth over $100,000!

Simply register your café online at www.nzcafeoftheyear.co.nz – then encourage your customers to vote for your café to be crowned #1!*

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK‘NZ CAFE OF THE YEAR’

espresso August 2012

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