Aucklanders are fickle diners. How do you build something they’ll queue for? Hugo Baird speaks to Viva about his hospo success and what he wants to do next.
The day before Hugo Baird opened Mother, he became a second-time father.
At his Grey Lynn cafe, the iced buns were about
to go viral; across town, his partner Lucy was in labour.
“We were in Birthcare, and Lucy said, ‘Look, do you want to go?’ I was only away for three or four hours, but, yeah, obviously not ideal.”
The investment in the new business had been enormous. You can’t, says Baird, leave an opening week to chance.
“We always knew there was going to be a clash … but it was our second one, so she knew what she was doing.
“That’s life as a business owner. You can’t pick and choose. I’d love to have been, ‘no, I’m just going to sit this one out’.”
This is a story of success – and sacrifice.
“I’ve definitely had moments where I’ve just thought, s***, is it all worth it? Particularly in my 20s. You’re leaving a party and it’s midnight and all your mates are just kicking off and I’m going home in a taxi because I’m waking up in five hours to pick up bread.
“I think I knew, even when I was working at Depot, that I was giving up something to be in hospitality.”
Baird quit Mt Albert Grammar for a building apprenticeship at the end of his sixth form (Year 12). Ultimately, what he built was a small Auckland hospitality empire. From Crumb to Honeybones and now Mother, Lilian and Hotel Ponsonby, Baird is connected to some of the city’s most queued-for restaurants and cafes.
“Hugo has always been a very hardworking and driven person,” says his partner, Lucy Jamieson. “But he also has a creative side. He has such a strong vision for the spaces that he has transformed – the interior, the music, the branding – he knows what he wants.”
If you’d told her in her 20s this would be her life: “I would have just laughed.”
That teenage Baird only lasted a year on the hammer (“the winters were tough – a couple of bangs on the thumb and a two-degree morning”). He signed up to become a personal trainer, but “I was in a tracksuit and everyone else was in a suit”. He got a part-time job delivering wine out of the back of a Jeep Wrangler and that, eventually, became a full-time gig selling to restaurants.
“I got something like $400 a week, and every week I’d buy a new T-shirt and go to the clubs shouting drinks.”
He was doing okay. Probably, he says, “there were some mercy listings going on”. More importantly, he had found his career path. Johnny de Monchy, Britomart Hospitality Group general manager, was an early mentor. When Baird decided that he too would like to own bars and restaurants, “Johnny said straight up, ‘Well, you might need to work in some first’.”
He went to Sydney with his mate and now business partner Willy Gresson, and found work at Manly’s Hotel Steyne. It had some “pretty glamorous” dining options, but Baird was stationed in the TAB bar. Absolutely everybody came in for a punt, and he learned the value of a hospitality space with broad demographic appeal.
“I’ve been to a lot of places where they’re just trying to be the cool crowd. If you’re not cool and hip, the barista is sort of annoyed at you for being there. I never liked any of that. Hated walking into a place where you didn’t feel welcome.”
Hugo Baird, who co-owns Mother, Lilian and Hotel Ponsonby, says a high service standard is key to hospitality industry success. Photo / Dean Purcell
Baird’s vision for Hotel Ponsonby was “three different vibes, across three different zones”. At Mother, he imagined a daytime cafe and a night-time wine bar, catering for the diners waiting to get into Lilian – the space that was popular from day one.
“I always try and do a build-up on social media. I think I just said ‘open’ and thought a few people might turn up.”
Two pages of waitlists. Two-hour waits for a table. For “whatever reason”, says Baird, service expectations for suburban dining were low.
“Our plan was to knock it out of the park.
“You want people to go ‘this fitout is amazing’ – and then you hang their jackets up and go a bit above and beyond.”
It was the formula he’d learned at Depot under the tutelage of Joe Williams (“best manager I’ve ever had”) and Warren Ford (who later invited Baird to help open Fed Deli).
Baird was fresh home from Australia and looking for bar work when he got offered a trial at Depot, famous for its shucked-to-order oysters, bach aesthetic and absolute refusal to take bookings or give celebrities preferential entry.
“It was all about everything being perfect and the customer having the best possible experience, even after waiting long periods of time to get in. I broke my ankle one year and had to do the door. That was quite tough, but it was cool to do something different, and it really helped me when we opened up here.”
“Here” is Lilian. He’s chosen the Richmond Rd venue, opened in 2019 with Gresson, chef Otis Gardner Schapiro and a silent business partner, for this mid-morning interview – mostly because it’s still a few hours before service.
Mother (opened with Gresson and Petra Galler) is just across the road and heaving with customers. In last week’s Viva, restaurant reviewer Jesse Mulligan awarded it a 19/20.
Baird and his business partners are baked into Grey Lynn hospo’s fabric. He’s sold Honey Bones, but it’s just a few doors down from where he’s sitting now. Crumb – where it all started – is more of a walk, but still qualifies for a Grey Lynn postcode.
“There’s no hiding it. We absolutely love it here.”
Baird was 23 when he took every penny he’d saved and went in with a friend to buy a tiny Ariki St cafe that came with a house that was next door to where he lived with his mum.
“Luckily, my mate was keen on the house and shop situation. We didn’t have enough money to live in the house ourselves. So we rented it out. And I rented the shop. I took that business very seriously. We were open six days a week, and I worked every single day … basics done well. We cared about the ingredients, and we didn’t really have a price formula. We just set it at what we thought was good, and hopefully we had some money left over at the end of the week.
“I knew I’d left school without a qualification, no uni, and I’ve always sort of tested myself and wanted to prove, to myself more than anything, that I can be good at something. When I was building, I wanted to have my own company. That sort of thing drove me to be better at what I was doing. Even when I went out for a few drinks, I’d have a curfew. I knew I had to get up, I never wanted to be hungover. I was just like ‘I have to make this work’.”
Infamously, he’d walk home after a bar shift rather than spend money on a cab. In Australia, he’d work until 5am, eat supermarket muesli, repeat. Every other month, he’d fly home to visit his graphic designer girlfriend, Lucy. As in the mother of his two children Lucy?
“We just had our 14-year anniversary,” confirms Baird.
Hugo Baird, at Grey Lynn restaurant Lilian, which he opened with business partners and friends in 2016. Photo / Dean Purcell
Hugo and Lucy met at a restaurant. Specifically, at a BYO group dinner on Ponsonby Rd where someone suggested boy-girl-boy seating.
Jamieson picks up the story: “I wouldn’t say I was immediately like ‘you are the love of my life’, but when you’re 20 – and he is a very good looking man – and I was single …”
They made a long-distance relationship work. They survived the years when Baird’s working hours were the “polar opposite” of everyone else’s social life. She took her laptop to Birthcare in case she had to send menus to the printer (she did). And, yes, she was absolutely fine when he whipped back to Mother to sort some opening day details.
“Maybe if it was our first baby, I would have been a little more strict about where he was allowed to go.
“For us to have grown up with each other, and now we’ve got these two beautiful children and this beautiful life … We’re not married or anything, but to have this very solid relationship, it is really special. And for Hugo to have created all these amazing spaces that have stood the test of time is also pretty special. Given the Auckland hospitality scene, it’s amazing really.”
Mother, the newest venture opened by Hugo Baird and friends, was designed to segue from a daytime cafe to evening wine bar. Photo / Dean Purcell
Every year, Baird writes a list of goals. Recently, he ticked off a major: Buy a bach.
“We managed to get something in the Far North. It’s just paradise. No shops, we take all our own food, we’ve got a good coffee machine, and it’s pretty much just fish and relax and the opposite of here.”
Crumb cost around $15,000 to set up. Baird says costs have doubled with every successive venture. He’s finished every fit-out broke, and the learning curves have been steep. When the chefs at Honey Bones didn’t come back from Christmas break, for example, he moved into the kitchen.
Formal training? “No …”
Baird and barista Jessie Mortensen-Cronin did 40 days straight before they found a new hire. The first dish he created was a smashed pumpkin, born from a “this goes with this” ingredients list in a book called The Food Bible.
“Outstanding,” said a customer.
“Confidence skyrocketed,” says Baird.
Back then, the sound of a child dropping a teaspoon on a concrete floor would go straight through him. Having kids looked hard, he says.
“That’s where I am now, in the trenches – and happy to be. A boy and a girl, and I’m able to be very involved in their lives, where other people with 9-5s may not be able to be. That’s a luxury that I enjoy; one of the benefits of being your own boss.
“I gave up a lot of my 20sand I want to enjoy life a little bit more now.”
Baird hopes he can stay in hospo long enough for Bonnie and Franco to know that’s what their dad did, but: “I don’t want to do one too many, especially if they’re costing. I’d like to think maybe another pub. It’d be a forever pub.”
Does he have a building in mind?
“I don’t want to say. But yeah, I do manifest it every day. It’s my pub that I’m going to be walking through with a walking stick.”
“No,” he grins. “It wouldn’t be in Grey Lynn. I would never do another thing in Grey Lynn.”
Kim Knight is a senior journalist on the New Zealand Herald’s lifestyle desk. She writes about food, the arts and more.
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