Restaurant Hell

Apparently in excess of 47 new restaurants have opened in Auckland in the last 4 weeks.

Hard to see them all surviving.

I haven't been to many new ones lately, trying to avoid the crush. There are obviously some stand outs; I haven’t heard a bad thing about Depot for instance (1 out of 48).

I guess my concern is that if it was difficult enough to find experienced service staff before the gold rush how hard must it be now?

I have heard of ex staff members being flown back from the far flung reaches of the globe and I assume that some very good staff have been poached from Christchurch.

Even then: 48 head chefs, 48 sous chefs, 48 maître d , 500 plus waiting staff, sommeliers, glassies and the list goes on.

They can’t all be good can they?

Hopefully the experiences of our international guests are good ones.

View more Dispatch posts

Back to Dispatch

Is The Button-Down The Most Versatile Shirt Of All?

For many of us, what we wear day-to-day is becoming more relaxed - and if you’ve traditionally been a steady dress shirt wearer, this can pose something of a challenge. At Crane Brothers we’re often asked what are some key pieces to consider building a contemporary wardrobe around, especially with this new paradigm in mind...

Vintage Queen Street

John Rykenberg ran a store front and photography studio of Auckland photographers from the late 1950s through until the late 1970s. During that time the studio captured Auckland's daily life and produced a particularly interesting Queen Street series in the 1960s - it probably comes as no surprise thatthere are road works visible in some of...

The Last Dambuster

The Dambusters were legendary for their wartime heroics and a constant source of inspiration for me as a child, raised on a diet of Commando Comics & Airfix Models.