David Bryson at the chef’s bar.
Photo: Supplied/Solera
Bay of Plenty restaurant Solera has become the first in the region to receive ‘two hats’ in The Cuisine Good Food Awards.
The recognition is a welcome lift for the Mount Maunganui village, which has struggled through several difficult winters.
The awards are New Zealand’s answer to the Michelin Guide, and restaurants can get one, two or three hats.
Two hats are given to dining establishments that prove they are consistently outstanding.
Co-owner Nick Potts, who founded Solera with wife Chloe Ashman, said people used the award list to find the country’s best restaurants.
“More so the Aucklanders, I guess, would hunt it out, so over the summer period, when all the Aucklanders come down, that’s when we get the people hunting out the hats.”
He said some foodies would even plan holidays around being able to dine in a hatted restaurant.
Restaurants do not enter to be judged in the awards, instead two anonymous judges will dine during the year and report a score back to the awards.
Of the 300 restaurants Cuisine judged to be worth visiting, only 32 were awarded two hats.
Solera is one of only two dining establishments in the Bay of Plenty to have ever been recognised in the awards, although Potts said fine dining wasn’t a model every establishment chased.
“You tend to make less money in restaurants of that quality, because your labour costs and food costs are drastically higher, so perhaps people would rather make a bit more money,” he said.
Potts said food prices especially had bitten hospitality businesses this winter and most establishments could not pass the full cost onto their customers.
“With us, for example, we do a price review every few months and our chef’s menu… we costed that before winter and after winter, and per person, the price it cost us to get it on the plate went up five dollars.”
Head chef David Bryson (left) and Nick Potts (right), who founded Solera with wife Chloe Ashman.
Photo: Supplied/Solera
However, he said it was difficult to pass that cost onto the consumer in the current climate, so they must take it out of the restaurant’s profits.
The No.1 food price rise hitting Solera is no surprise – butter.
“We are literally changing some of our dishes, because they are using too much butter and the cost of butter has gone through the roof,” he said.
Potts is on the Mount Business Association board, as a hospitality representative.
He said places were struggling and people found they couldn’t easily sell hospitality restaurants.
He said businesses had their hopes pinned on the end of winter.
“I guess a lot of people are eyeing this summer as the turning point and this will hopefully be the last of the really terrible winters,” he said.
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