\n As parents of three and Michelin Bib Gourmand-winning co-owners of Birkenhead\u2019s Duo, Osteria Uno, Bon Pinard and Hinemoa St Cellar, Sarah and Jordan MacDonald have a lot to juggle, their love life included. They tell Rebecca Barry Hill how a recent food odyssey through Spain and France without children helped
\n them reconnect.\n <\/p>\n
Sarah: Life was very stressful before this trip in terms of staff rotation, fluctuating revenue, and at the same time, trying to maintain some sense of interest in each other. <\/p>\n
Jordan: You\u2019re getting the kids to school, to sports, making sure you have work-life balance, dealing with the cost of everything going up\u2026 it all puts pressure on the businesses to keep maintaining and growing. <\/p>\n
S: We\u2019d had one of those years where we\u2019d think, \u2018Why are we doing this? Why are we sacrificing our relationship? What should we be doing differently?\u2019 It\u2019s very rare we\u2019d put each other first. But a couple of days in, wandering around Barcelona, we realised there\u2019s nothing we can do to help out at home. We could relax and enjoy and just walk around and eat all day. <\/p>\n
Scallops cooked over the hibachi at Bar Brutal, Barcelona.<\/p>\n
J: We went to Bar Brutal in Barcelona, a restaurant I\u2019d been following for at least 10 years, and ate unbelievably simple scallops with olive oil and sherry vinegar. I\u2019d always wanted to take Sarah there. It was very cool vibes. <\/p>\n
S: We realised we hadn\u2019t sat opposite each other for a meal since one of our first trips to Melbourne when we were researching Uno. I made a pact that we shouldn\u2019t talk about work, we shouldn\u2019t talk about kids. <\/p>\n
J: But everything just went back to talking about those things. The direction of the restaurants, how we can take inspiration from where we are. Our five-year plan. <\/p>\n
S: It\u2019s all we\u2019ve ever known and we love talking about it. It\u2019s our life, our passion. <\/p>\n
Jordan and Sarah MacDonald relaxing by the river in Bayonne, France, with nothing to do except restaurant hop.<\/p>\n
J: Travelling together definitely brought out our strengths. I\u2019m super creative but not particularly focused. Sarah keeps me in line. She\u2019s also very good at looking at dishes and critiquing things and pushing them to be better. <\/p>\n
S: Maybe I\u2019m a pessimist but Jordan\u2019s an optimist. So together, we\u2019re a realist. <\/p>\n
J: Sarah\u2019s fantastic \u2013 she loves to be at the airport three, four hours early and be super organised. She\u2019ll have an itinerary planned out. But she\u2019s also the first person to cut things from it and just go with the flow. <\/p>\n
S: Jordan barely knew there was a trip happening. All he had to do was pack a bag and arrive. Once he arrived he\u2019d have input, when I\u2019d been planning it for six months. But we were very in tune. At restaurants we\u2019d look at each other and wouldn\u2019t have to say a word. Then we\u2019d both say at the same time, \u2018more acid? Yep\u2019. Or \u2018salt?\u2019 By the end of the trip, Jordan had bought me a little Maldon salt tin. <\/p>\n
J: We season things differently in New Zealand. <\/p>\n
Seaweed ice cream and caviar at Mont Bar, Barcelona.<\/p>\n
S: We had lots of romantic moments. At [two-Michelin-star restaurant] Mont Bar, we had seaweed ice cream with caviar. In Ibiza, we visited a tiny shack restaurant right on the water. The fisherman goes out at 2am, then at lunchtime you sit in this little cove beside a wooden pier eating fish a la plancha, fish stew cooked over a fire on a thick steel plate. It was very down\u2011to\u2011earth, pulling bones out of a whole fish in this beautiful setting. <\/p>\n
J: In Paris it was 38 degrees. It was sweaty romance, walking around in the city of love, everyone\u2019s happy, the lights are sparkling. We had an incredible meal at Septime [one of the world\u2019s best restaurants]. <\/p>\n
A long lunch at Septime, Paris.<\/p>\n
S: Asparagus with mustard seeds and beurre blanc \u2013 surprisingly spicy. It felt like a sculpture, an elevated crudite. Lots of veges, lots of wine, and a Basque cheesecake to finish. Jordan loves his wine. When we fought, it was usually because he\u2019d spent too much on it. <\/p>\n
J: A bit like the handbag you bought in Ibiza\u2026 <\/p>\n
S: Yes, it\u2019s financially stressful to take a big trip, but it\u2019s worth it. At home, the small things drag you down \u2013 someone calls in sick, something breaks, an email comes through about a process issue. The trip helped us realise we hadn\u2019t drifted apart; we were just focused on different areas. We\u2019d been in go\u2011go\u2011go mode for so long. We talked about that before we came home as well. We wanted to make sure we\u2019d listen to each other, that we wouldn\u2019t get so caught up. <\/p>\n
Basque Cheesecake at La Vi\u00f1a, San Sebastian.<\/p>\n
S: We used to come home, put the kids to bed and immediately open our laptops. Now we try to leave work at work. At night, we sit together, not on opposite ends of the couch, and watch an episode or play a board game. Little things you forget to do when you fall out of good patterns. <\/p>\n
J: The trip was a really good reset, a reminder of why we\u2019re together. <\/p>\n
Sarah and Jordan MacDonald in Paris, on their way to Septime for lunch.<\/p>\n
Sarah and Jordan MacDonald are hosting a special Europe-inspired dinner on September 9 and 10 at Duo, 138 Hinemoa St, Birkenhead. To book, visit duoeatery.co.nz <\/p>\n
More inspiring holidays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As parents of three and Michelin Bib Gourmand-winning co-owners of Birkenhead\u2019s Duo, Osteria Uno, Bon Pinard and Hinemoa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1443,184,289011,102592,1061,289010,8414,1871,156,2024,564,1221,289009,305,9832,31037,289012,189,78,28636,16802,113171,424,2882,29165,54677,111,139,69,189496,90,151865,3766,151866,64578,8244,46987,15553,6967,2029,93954,18323,165,2846,8229,1529,210,124743,6923,1339],"class_list":["post-586979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-about","tag-barry","tag-birkenheads","tag-cellar","tag-children","tag-coowners","tag-couple","tag-duo","tag-entertainment","tag-europe","tag-food","tag-france","tag-gourmandwinning","tag-have","tag-helped","tag-hill","tag-hinemoa","tag-holiday","tag-in","tag-included","tag-jordan","tag-juggle","tag-life","tag-love","tag-macdonald","tag-michelin","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-odyssey","tag-on","tag-osteria","tag-parents","tag-pinard","tag-rebecca","tag-recent","tag-reconnect","tag-restaurateur","tag-sarah","tag-spain","tag-taught","tag-tell","tag-their","tag-them","tag-they","tag-three","tag-through","tag-uno","tag-what","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586979","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=586979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}