Depot Eatery<\/a> on Federal St, Auckland, with a $29 crispy pork hock. Today, that dish, for two to share, comes with apple salsa verde, parsnip puree \u2013 and a $50 price tag.<\/p>\nThe ingredients cost almost $15 (including 8c worth of black peppercorns, 24c worth of flaky Marlborough sea salt and a 12c Granny Smith apple) and a long list of prep steps (make the herb oil, peel the parsnips, etc).<\/p>\n
Total labour costs sit between 40-45%, Brown says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then overheads. Rent, collating invoices, paying suppliers, delivery charges, food safety and compliance costs, staff meals, breakages, wastage and of course our new favourite, \u2018fuel surcharge\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Chef]()
Chef Al Brown can tell you how much a dish costs, right down to 8c for the peppercorns. Photo \/ Carson Bluck<\/p>\n
Every chef we spoke to knows customers have heard all this before. Nobody we spoke to wants to pay staff less or charge diners more.<\/p>\n
But a 70% price increase for a pig knuckle?<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 15 years? And it serves two people? Absolutely,\u201d says Brown. \u201cThe public are aware, when they go to a supermarket and pick up two steaks and it\u2019s thirty bucks …\u201d<\/p>\n
He agrees that restaurants held their prices for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then I think they found they could never recover. The margins are so fine anyway, there\u2019s no real wiggle room. Absorbing, absorbing, absorbing \u2013 and eventually you can\u2019t. The prices go up. You\u2019re either in business or you\u2019re not in business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once, chefs magicked up profits doing smart things with secondary cuts. One restaurateur said that even the poultry frames that are turned into stock \u2013 literally a little skin and a lot of bones \u2013 were now $2.80 a kilogram. <\/p>\n
Pork belly, lamb shanks, chicken wings and lamb necks have long since shifted into higher price brackets.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave we done it to ourselves?\u201d asks Brown. \u201cThey become popular, and then the suppliers put the price up?<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel the animal will, eventually, just be sold at one price. Whether it\u2019s the lamb ribs or it\u2019s a rack, they\u2019re both equally delicious. The fillet of beef is wonderful, but so is the shin if it\u2019s cooked correctly, or the oxtail.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is easy to think a $50 main is the domain of high-profile chefs or fancy city restaurants, but the 300g \u201crockin\u2019 ribeye\u201d at the Queen Street Lonestar (served with onion puree, buffalo chips, coleslaw and steak sauce) is $54.50.<\/p>\n
At Hamilton\u2019s Speight\u2019s Alehouse, a 300g scotch fillet with roasted-duck-fat Jerusalem artichoke, shiraz jus and fries costs $60 (add aioli for an extra $2). Greymouth\u2019s Monteith\u2019s Brewing Company restaurant charges $59 for a 200g beef fillet with swede puree, pesto-roasted spuds, mushrooms, greens and a winter berry jus. The sirloin at a provincial Cobb and Co will set you back $54, but it does come with fries, salad and half a kilo of pork ribs.<\/p>\n
A comparable so-called \u201chigh-end\u201d restaurant spend in Auckland gives you the likes of Cibo\u2019s confit duck leg, five-spice cured duck breast, parsnip puree, spiced pear and honey, and lentil gremolata or Mt Morris\u2019s 300g Greenstone scotch with onion, truffle and celeriac (both $56).<\/p>\n
![\"Chef]()
Chef Sean Yarborough – a.k.a. Broke Boy Taco – who recently went public to plead the case for increased prices.<\/p>\n
Ask Rob Richardson, co-director of the AUT Centre for Critical Food Studies, about the advent of the $50-plus main and he says some higher-end restaurants are actually being forced to undercharge to compete.<\/p>\n
He says the industry needs a \u201cparadigm shift\u201d, listing disrupters that aren\u2019t going away (Uber Eats, \u201cdark\u201d kitchens set up solely to service delivery orders and food trucks) and societal changes like more solo diners and less alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story about Broke Boy Taco summed it up. His beef cost has doubled but he can only, and reluctantly, put the price up by $5. But at $25, he now risks being seen as sitting in a new price band, one that\u2019s no longer takeaways. People are going to start comparing his price to those of some on-premise dining options. That\u2019s a really awkward place for him to sit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s spoken out to try and justify it, but what he really needs is for others in that comparable on-premise dining price band to put their prices up. But they can\u2019t, because then they start to enter into the higher-class bracket and then they start to look like bad value …\u201d<\/p>\n
At the top end, Richardson says it\u2019s even worse. <\/p>\n
\u201cTwo $50 dishes makes you think $100 straight away. Again, you start comparing value, not just to other restaurants, but to the supermarket and power bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diners want value for money, but they also want barista-made coffees and snapper in their fish and chips (\u201cand then we complain about the price of both\u201d). Meanwhile, rents are increasing and so are compliance costs, including a new Food Business Levy introduced last July and set to double next year.<\/p>\n
Richardson says many budgets were tightened post-Covid, and there are no costs left to cut. Operators were looking ahead, seeing no economic change, and throwing in the towel, often in conjunction with an expiring lease.<\/p>\n
What would his paradigm shift look like?<\/p>\n
\u201cFirstly, we limit the number of food outlets. If you want to open a new outlet, you have to take over a vacant licence. In places like Germany, this comes with a requirement to have hospitality business qualifications. This would condense the spend, rather than dilute it,\u201d Richardson says.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould we offer financial incentives for restaurants in locations where we want to support vibrancy? K Rd is going through a really tough time, as is mid-town. And we need to ensure a fair playing field. That means Uber and its like paying fair wages to delivery people. Restaurants have to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hearing about venues whose leases are up for renewal facing big increases even in a market that is down, with shops sitting empty. Some cities fine building owners if a shop sits empty too long. This might force some building owners to be realistic around rents.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Costs]()
Costs associated with Onslow’s $62 duck dish include breaking down and dry-ageing the poultry and preserving plums from Cromwell. <\/p>\n
Chef Josh Emett says the $50 price point is not a new phenomenon, but \u201ceverything that can be done should have been done before the price is raised\u201d.<\/p>\n
Five of the seven mains served at his restaurant Onslow sit above $50 (and the southern station wagyu sirloin, braised p\u0101ua cream, potato croquette and pickled wakame will set you back almost twice that).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have customers who have an appetite for luxury \u2013 they would love to have a half p\u0101ua on a plate, or a whole crayfish. If the product is exceptional, they\u2019re willing to pay for it,\u201d Emett says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we definitely need a beautiful braised beef cheek dish through winter that means we can manage our costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Onslow, the duck breast with juniper sauce, plum, daikon and citrus glaze is $62. The protein component alone costs up to $14. But that duck is bought either whole or on the crown. Chefs break down the bird and dry-age it for at least 10 days to ensure the crispiest skin possible (\u201cthat adds a storage element to costs\u201d). Stonefruit preserves are made in-house over summer and, if they incorporate pinot noir, it\u2019s the proper stuff, not cooking wine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of things that go into it,\u201d says Emett. And there is no single formula applied to the custom price.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur crayfish eclair is a good example. Almost every customer who comes in the door has one. Our kitchen team has said, \u2018Can we change it?\u2019 No. It needs that amount of crayfish. So they ask us to offset some of that cost to marketing, because the kitchen is conscious about managing their cost. And I don\u2019t mind that argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got dishes you lose on and dishes you win on. Regardless, you definitely don\u2019t want to put something on a plate and be tight. We just don\u2019t run our businesses tight. We like to run them with a generous spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why does a restaurant main cost $50 when you can buy the ingredients for $15?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no good answer for that, other than understanding how businesses work. How restaurants work,\u201d says Emett. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the cost of having a night out. The convenience, the labour …<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get billed for the price of your house and you don\u2019t go to Bunnings and say, \u2018Well, a piece of wood costs me $12 \u2013 why are you charging me $400,000?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Last year, a Hospitality New Zealand-commissioned report found the sector directly employed 193,000 people, accounting for 6.7% of all jobs. Annual revenue in the year ended March 2025 was $21.4 billion or 5% of the country\u2019s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n
Next week, attention on the sector will increase with the release of the first Michelin guides for Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown, and Tourism New Zealand is promising its $6.3m investment in bringing the guide here will provide a much-needed boost to the food and beverage sector.<\/p>\n
Helen Turnbull, chef and owner of 50-50 in Paraparaumu Beach, says hospitality needs to \u201cget back to fundamentals\u201d to capitalise on that expected surge in food tourism \u2013 and stay in business with ever-decreasing margins.<\/p>\n
![\"Helen]()
Helen Turnbull, chef and owner of Paraparaumu Beach restaurant 50-50, says every employee needs to know the numbers – and how they can influence them. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
\u201cMenus are usually the biggest blind spot. Every dish carries a cost \u2013 ingredients, labour, wastage, supply consistency \u2013 and those variables are shifting faster than many operators can keep up with. You can have a dish that\u2019s loved by customers and staff, but if the spreadsheets don\u2019t love it too, you\u2019re throwing away very fine margins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turnbull takes every employee, from dishwashers to waitstaff to chefs, through the numbers, \u201cand we review those every day and look at what actions and behaviours they can change to help improve those numbers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Is the customer on the email database? Do they need a port to finish their anniversary dinner? Turnbull\u2019s multi-course set menus start at $125 a head. Wage and food costs sit around 60% of the selling price and, while that target hasn\u2019t changed, \u201cit has definitely become harder to achieve because of the rising costs\u201d.<\/p>\n
The juggle looks something like an $11.61 plus GST quail (marinated panfried breast, confit leg rolled in filo and deepfried, bones in a pasilla chile-spiked jus) and a broccoli soup with an aged cheddar custard and kawakawa poppadom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho the hell orders a la carte soups? No one does. And no one who comes in booked for my nine-course says, \u2018Oh yeah, I\u2019m really looking forward to trying that soup.\u2019 So the opportunity I have is that I can make a really delicious soup, and the margins on it are pretty good. But the real opportunity is that\u2019s the dish that becomes their favourite because it surprises them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Clementine McIntyre and Maxine Seto Ma.<\/p>\n
Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016. She is a former restaurant critic for canvas magazine and has a master\u2019s degree in gastronomy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe sell food and wine,\u201d says Lambert simply. \u201cI cost everything to the cent.\u201d If the numbers don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13212,31036,53988,9451,802,156,13635,2250,3120,111,139,425,69,61492,17398,3333,2539,10270,35300,8475,4276,102,1530,1959],"class_list":["post-498796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-13212","tag-asks","tag-chefs","tag-chicken","tag-costs","tag-entertainment","tag-knight","tag-longer","tag-main","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-now","tag-nz","tag-played","tag-possible","tag-price","tag-restaurant","tag-restaurants","tag-tag","tag-thats","tag-why","tag-with","tag-years","tag-your"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498796","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=498796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}