There\u2019s a new owner at an old Ponsonby Rd restaurant address and he won\u2019t be pandering to your comfort eating needs. Chef Matt Lambert speaks to Kim Knight about coming home to cook with intention.<\/p>\n
Six days before he opened his new restaurant Matt Lambert was still writing the menu.<\/p>\n
Easier, perhaps, to tell us what he would not be cooking: duck fat potatoes. Absolutely anything designed for sharing. Fries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is food specifically made and composed just for you. And I feel like that is a throwback way of cooking now. When was the last time somewhere opened that did that?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Michelin-starred chef doubles down.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely no fries. If you want fries, I don\u2019t give a s***. You can get fries anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Return, Matt and Barbara Lambert’s new 62-seater restaurant, in Ponsonby. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
Last Wednesday, Lambert and his American wife Barbara opened Return, a 62-seat restaurant on a storied Auckland hospo site most recently occupied by Gigi and, for the longest time before that, Ponsonby Rd Bistro.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are entering a continuum and we will treat it accordingly,\u201d said Lambert, although standing on the footpath underneath the vivid red rolldown canvas awnings installed by a previous owner, he also said, \u201cif these don\u2019t disappear today, I\u2019m getting a ladder and a boxcutter and doing it myself\u201d.<\/p>\n
We are supposed to be in the restaurant, sitting on the banquette seats newly recovered in a very specifically briefed shade of blue (\u201cthe colour of the New Zealand ocean in the summertime\u201d). But while sauces are underway in the refurbished kitchen, the dining room is a construction zone. <\/p>\n
Matt Lambert photographed during the renovations of his new Ponsonby restaurant Return. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Tradies are cutting holes in the roof to accommodate 30kg of chandelier lighting; a 16.2m long swamp kauri countertop is cocooned in protective blankets and the glassware with the muttonbird logo is still in boxes upstairs.<\/p>\n
Lambert decamps to a cafe and orders himself two iced black coffees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little bit tired, but it\u2019s not my first rodeo. I\u2019ve been through this so many times and, to be honest, with it being our thing \u2013 Barbara and I \u2013 everything is great. Like, it sucks when problems come up, but ultimately, when it\u2019s finished, it\u2019s gonna be f***ing beautiful. And I\u2019m just really proud of what it\u2019s gonna be. I can see that, and that is better than anything that could be going wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barbara calls it a \u201cfull-circle moment\u201d \u2013 a culmination of everything the couple has learned in their lifetime of hospitality.<\/p>\n
Barbara and Matt Lambert have worked together in hospitality for at least half their married life. Their newest restaurant is Return, on Ponsonby Rd. Photo \/ Amber Soljan<\/p>\n
Return is the Lamberts\u2019 first restaurant since New York\u2019s The Musket Room. In 2013, they broke the record for attaining the world\u2019s fastest Michelin star, earning the accolade just four months after opening (and holding onto it until 2020 when they came back to Auckland to work with Rodd & Gunn\u2019s The Lodge Group).<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d do anything for that dude,\u201d Lambert says of Rodd & Gunn\u2019s chief executive Mike Beagley. But: \u201cI don\u2019t know how else to say it, other than I\u2019d prefer to just be in charge of what\u2019s happening\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lambert left The Lodge late last year planning to take a year off and maybe finally renovate the house he and Barbara share with sons Pierce and Elvis. All that changed when Tourism New Zealand announced it was spending $6.3m to bring the Michelin Guide to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown. Lambert had busted a gut in New York in an unfulfilled quest for two-star recognition. <\/p>\n
The opportunity to go for it on home turf? \u201cI\u2019m just supremely motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lamberts picked up the keys to 165 Ponsonby Rd on February 9. They gave themselves five weeks to open and, while they missed that target (even the ovens had to be made to order) the tight deadline may not have surprised anyone who knows them.<\/p>\n
West Auckland-raised Lambert was 14 when he became a dishwasher. He left school in Year 11 and, as a newly graduated 20-year-old chef, opened Wellington\u2019s Sun Seair Cafe with his mother Anita (\u201cand I probably thought I was better at cooking then than I do now\u201d).<\/p>\n
It was a steep learning curve. Ultimately, he\u2019d move back to Auckland for more experience and spend two years working under chef Michael Meredith at The Grove where Barbara (Connecticut-born with a fine arts degree) was working front of house – a young traveller who had landed her job via family connections with the restaurant\u2019s American owner, Michael Dearth. Three months after Matt and Barbara met, they eloped.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you plan to take a long time, you\u2019ll take a long time,\u201d says Lambert.<\/p>\n
They have been married for 20 years and have worked together in hospitality for more than half that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of those things make sense . . . for one, most chefs don\u2019t stay married,\u201d says Lambert.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way she makes people feel in the dining room is like, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anyone better, you know? There have been times where I\u2019ve tried to work with somebody else, and it\u2019s just been like, \u2018what the f*** are we doing here?\u2019 She makes everybody feel special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lambert claims he\u2019s still figuring out what he brings to the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely would say that I have pretty strong elements of impostor syndrome, but I know that I can do a pretty good job and, generally speaking, my food\u2019s pretty solid.\u201d<\/p>\n
For years, the chef has fielded questions about dining differences between New Zealand and New York. It\u2019s only now, he says, that he feels qualified to have an opinion.<\/p>\n
\u201cAuckland doesn\u2019t have enough institutions that just stand the test of time. We\u2019ve got Prego, we\u2019ve got Cibo, and that\u2019s awesome but there should be more. Tony\u2019s Restaurant in Henderson closed and, to me, that\u2019s f***ing sad. I remember going there as a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
More controversially, he fears a collective \u201cdumbing down\u201d of the industry in response to customer demand for post-Covid comfort food.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times, there is a value placed on \u2018how full do I feel?\u2019 I\u2019m not trying to make you feel full, otherwise I\u2019d just give you a bowl of pasta and some mashed potatoes and we can be done. I\u2019m trying to teach my team to get the most out of the least ingredients, to do better than I\u2019ve done before. I can\u2019t do that by trying to please everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three days after this two-coffee interview, Viva received an email. That menu was finally taking shape – an a la carte list of snacks, entrees, mains and desserts, a six-course \u201cshort story\u201d ($165) and a 10-course \u201clong story\u201d ($225).<\/p>\n
“Fish and chips” reimagined by chef Matt Lambert for Return, the new Ponsonby Rd restaurant he has opened with his wife Barbara. Photo \/ Amber Soljan<\/p>\n
P\u0101ua, kingfish and quail. Venison, salmon and fried bone marrow. A study of feijoa and textures of chocolate. There are \u201cChips and dip\u201d and \u201cfish and chips\u201d but they come with a quotemark caveat that, in a restaurant setting, guarantees subversion. (The latter, it transpires, is a Lambert classic that begins with a beer battered cracker).<\/p>\n
Return\u2019s drinks list (led by sommelier Jim Turner) champions local growers and producers, with pairings available for both tasting menus and a cocktail selection that includes the \u201cFlightless Bird\u201d, a play on a white negroni using K\u0101k\u0101p\u014d gin.<\/p>\n
The crudo entree from Return. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
\u201cI had planned to only use things that were wild and nothing farmed,\u201d says Lambert. \u201cBut that just isolates everything and takes you away from cooking good food. One of the driving forces is don\u2019t let philosophy get in the way of good cooking.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe harder you want to go on it, the less your vocabulary or library of flavour is going to be, because anything that you think of is going to be introduced \u2013 kiwifruit, feijoa, avocados, lamb, beef, venison, goat, all of it, you know what I mean?<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand is a nation of birds and fish. I would love to serve weka, and I did a bunch of research, but . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
Weka are fully protected on mainland New Zealand. The only place where they can be legally harvested is the Chatham Islands and some islands around Rakiura.<\/p>\n
Return’s Ora King salmon with fennel and lemon. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
He does hope to feature fresh t\u012bt\u012b (more commonly known as muttonbird). In the meantime, its silhouette features on the Return logo, a migratory shearwater echoing the Lamberts\u2019 own northern-southern hemisphere travels.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was playing with a lot of ideas for names. \u2018Return\u2019 felt bang on. It just carries a lot. The connotations of travel and my own journey and coming home. It\u2019s quite an emotional word. And, you know, I was f***ing shocked that no one had called a restaurant Return before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lambert has never wanted to be anything but a chef. His kitchen persona has, he says, evolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I had kids, I would say I was a real ***hole . . . but I haven\u2019t had an absolute blowup in probably eight years. There would have been times when I would have been very challenging to work for in New York. I might have put too much importance into what we were doing . . . I will swear a bit and sometimes I get f***ing angry. But these days, I am definitely way, way, way more chill and I try to allow people the space to figure out things themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Return, the ethos is literally bound in a nine-page kitchen welcome and staff workbook.<\/p>\n
Sample text: \u201cYou may hear people describe Return as fine dining. It isn\u2019t. This is intentional dining. Fine dining can become about surfaces, performance, or expectation. Intention is about purpose \u2013 why something exists, why it is cooked, why it is served the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The workbook is practical (labelling, ordering and prep lists), philosophical (attitude, learning and legacy) and – crucially – personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe walls here have seen care, pressure, service, exhaustion and celebration \u2013 the full rhythm of restaurant life . . . At our wedding, witnesses included people directly connected to the history of this building.”<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a reminder, say the Lamberts, that hospitality is relational.<\/p>\n
\u201cRestaurants are made by people, not concepts.\u201d<\/p>\n
More food and drink<\/p>\n
The people behind the places we like to eat at.<\/p>\n
Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016 and is a senior journalist on its lifestyle desk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a new owner at an old Ponsonby Rd restaurant address and he won\u2019t be pandering to your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1443,3255,169,76879,24004,4194,5818,156,193863,1345,193865,13635,76634,193862,30506,51706,9812,111,139,7805,69,2738,193864,26890,2539,1527,12860,13660,17213,4504,118826,102,14443,1959],"class_list":{"0":"post-370682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-about","9":"tag-address","10":"tag-chef","11":"tag-comfort","12":"tag-coming","13":"tag-cook","14":"tag-eating","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-fries","17":"tag-home","18":"tag-intention","19":"tag-knight","20":"tag-lambert","21":"tag-lamberts","22":"tag-matt","23":"tag-menu","24":"tag-needs","25":"tag-new-zealand","26":"tag-newzealand","27":"tag-no","28":"tag-nz","29":"tag-owner","30":"tag-pandering","31":"tag-ponsonby","32":"tag-restaurant","33":"tag-return","34":"tag-revealed","35":"tag-sharing","36":"tag-speaks","37":"tag-theres","38":"tag-weka","39":"tag-with","40":"tag-wont","41":"tag-your"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}