For 40 years, Prego has fed an entire generation of Aucklanders.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrama is everywhere in hospitality,\u201d Brandon Lela\u2019ulu, general manager at Prego tells me when I ask about the juiciest stories to come out of the restaurant in its 40 years of operation on Ponsonby Road.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t know why,
\n or how they got there, but we did find a pair of women\u2019s underwear on the roof when we were doing the renovations. Apparently no one knows where they came from,\u201d he pauses thoughtfully.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure children have been conceived at Prego. In fact, we\u2019ve had three pregnant mums have their waters break at the same table \u2013 table 17. It\u2019s like, do not sit there if you\u2019re pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prego\u2019s reputation precedes itself. We\u2019re a pretty young city. We don\u2019t have the 100-year-old restaurants like New York or London, but if Auckland was to have a grand dame, I think most would probably say it was Prego. If you want to know where to eat in the city, it\u2019s highly likely locals will, at some point, steer you in the direction of this institution.<\/p>\n
Prego’s courtyard has been the place to be for 40 years. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
Where else can you have tables of ros\u00e9-sipping late lunchers slipping out just as young families arrive with kids to settle in for pizzas and Shirley Temples, making their way home for bedtime as the night owls head in for a martini at the bar while they wait for their preferred table to open up. Prego is a rare jewel; unfussy yet glamorous, timeless without being staid.<\/p>\n
First opened in October 1986, the Ponsonby that Prego arrived into is very different to the one it occupies today.<\/p>\n
Prego celebrates its 40th birthday this year. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
The suburb is now a nightlife hotspot, for one. The demographic has shifted, too. But, as Lela\u2019ulu tells me, they \u201ckind of live in a bubble\u201d at Prego.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe restaurant is always evolving. You know, you might say, oh we haven\u2019t seen so and so in a while, and then suddenly they come back in and they\u2019ve been living overseas for 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can walk down the street to go and get some lunch and bump into an eight year old who will go, \u2018Hi Brandon\u2019,\u201d Lela\u2019ulu says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic. And, you know, I\u2019ll know their parents, I\u2019ll know their cousins. But it\u2019s actually a lot deeper; people celebrate their special occasions here, their weddings, their birthdays, or even after someone passes away.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I feel very proud and honoured to be part of that community.\u201d <\/p>\n
Prego’s entrance, as it looked in 2005. Photo \/ Chris Skelton<\/p>\n
He tells me about kids growing up and coming in on dates or with friends when they finally become old enough to go out on their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make a real effort. They might just come in and have a pizza bread, but they\u2019ll have the best service.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an echo of my experience. I was one of those kids who grew up coming to Prego.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s where we\u2019d go for almost all our birthdays, where I had my first glass of wine with dinner, and where I quickly rejected the kids\u2019 menu in favour of the grown-up dishes, much to the frustration of my parents\u2019 bank account, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n
Prego general manager Brandon Le’alulu and owner Kelvin Gibson, pictured at the restaurant’s 30th birthday in 2016. Photo \/ Doug Sherring<\/p>\n
I would go there with my friends for dinners at 18 when we were freshly legal and felt very grown-up and glamorous, and with dates as I got older. It\u2019s the place I\u2019d ask to eat whenever I was home on my university holidays.<\/p>\n
And then I moved to London and, with the exception of the odd visit, I didn\u2019t go to Prego for the better part of eight years.<\/p>\n
Yet, when I moved home at the end of last year, I was embraced once more by the restaurant.<\/p>\n
The menu had changed slightly \u2013 a few dishes had been removed or added, and the classics section had been absorbed into the wider menu \u2013 but apart from that, the restaurant remained blissfully, reliably unchanged.<\/p>\n
A selection of favourites on the menu at Prego: linguine alla marinara, calamari fritti, and surf and turf. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m certainly not alone. Prego has collected a number of regulars over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s families where I\u2019ll see one member of that family for lunch, and then I\u2019ll see another one at dinner getting takeaways. Then someone will come in for a drink at the bar. They\u2019ll be getting kids meals here and they\u2019ll be getting margaritas there. There\u2019s actually a couple of families like that,\u201d Lela\u2019ulu says.<\/p>\n
We bumped into one diner upon my arrival who, Lela\u2019ulu tells me, is at the restaurant every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes he\u2019ll come in for lunch, and then he\u2019ll come back in for dessert later on in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the couple who have come to Prego every day for dinner for decades. It might, to those not familiar with the restaurant, seem ridiculous. But, Lela\u2019ulu tells me, for the team at Prego it\u2019s an honour that people trust them enough to feel safe there.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first time at Prego, I was 6 weeks old,\u201d content creator and author Cassandra Grodd tells me. \u201cI then came weekly with my parents until I was old enough to come without them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She tells me about bringing her boyfriend to the restaurant for one of their first dates early this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI waltzed him into a busy Saturday afternoon lunch session. We walked straight into Brandon who looked up and said \u2018You know she was practically born here\u2019,\u201d she says, with a laugh. <\/p>\n
She can even recite her order: \u201cOysters, always. Pizza bread to share, or a calamari.\u201d She mentions the margherita pizza, the saltimbocca and, in winter, the Prego pie. And, to finish, a sticky date pudding. She also specifically requests the return of the old pollo pizza \u2013 something Lela\u2019ulu says is a regular occurrence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything attached to the word \u2018change\u2019 at Prego is generally going to have a negative effect,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe took the chicken saltimbocca off the menu temporarily and I think somebody started a Facebook page that went \u2018bring back the saltimbocca\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
He tells me about guests coming in and ordering versions of dishes that were on the menu decades ago, and that as much as the kitchen will allow, they\u2019ll always try to accommodate these requests.<\/p>\n
Chefs during the lunch service at Prego. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
When I was 14 or so, I wrote the kitchen a letter requesting they put the original Prego loaf of bread back on the menu, so incensed I was about its replacement by a ciabatta that, in my adolescent eyes, was an enormous step back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I still have that letter somewhere,\u201d Lela\u2019ulu tells me. \u201cTaking that loaf off was a big one.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a misconception, among diners, that Prego remains unchanged. But the menu that existed here in the 80s is very different to the one served today. There was grilled chicken breast and steamed vegetables. It was, Lela\u2019ulu says, \u201cvery 80s. Very meat and three vege.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current Prego team. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
The changes are often subtle, done so in pursuit of progression in the quality of the food offered, or seasonal depending on the produce coming in. The fact that the restaurant remains so deceptively similar to how it did 40 years ago, that it is both seemingly unchanging and reliable, is a key facet of its success.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also about how the team welcome diners with open arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrego has always looked after its people in a real, welcome and easy way,\u201d Grodd tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s special to people because it makes them feel special, and has done so consistently, across literal decades, from infants to being parents themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
More food and drink<\/p>\n
The people behind the places we like to eat at.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 40 years, Prego has fed an entire generation of Aucklanders. \u201cDrama is everywhere in hospitality,\u201d Brandon Lela\u2019ulu,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[24041,1975,22398,1863,24004,156,20209,22397,29163,809,111,139,69,26890,202662,2642,223,61,4276,1530],"class_list":["post-392036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-24041","tag-at","tag-aucklanders","tag-back","tag-coming","tag-entertainment","tag-entire","tag-favourite","tag-generation","tag-keep","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ponsonby","tag-prego","tag-rd","tag-the","tag-to","tag-why","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392036","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=392036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}