Just back from Tokyo, Martin Bosley is definitely flavour of the moment. Nadine Isler stopped by for a minute or two to find out why.

Martin Bosley wanted to be a chef? when he was nine years old. He opened his first restaurant when he was 21, and now runs his eponymous 10-table restaurant on the waterfront. After two years of awkwardly turning away non-yacht club members, the restaurant was given the first public-access licence awarded to an existing sports club in New Zealand six years ago. 

Bosley was delighted. He felt the previous zoning issues regarding commercial activity in a recreational zone meant a colossal waste of a great spot. He still operated at a loss for the next six months and then decided to do something about it.

Instead of expensive advertising, Bosley opted for market research. After learning of a few unexpected things he could implement in his business, some within days, he knew it was the best money he’d ever spent. On everything, from the font on the menus to the type of glassware the restaurant used, “we found out some extraordinary, random stuff”. 

Despite his experience consulting for McDonalds – “where the focus groups are just brutal!” – Bosley found it essential to try to keep an open mind to the things he heard. He mentions the feedback on his big round tables. “People said the tables were so huge and intimidating that they felt like they needed a passport to get to the other side!” So he took them out and put smaller squares in. 
He plans to repeat the exercise in another year or so, calling it an essential healthcheck on the business.

Now, weekends are booked five weeks in advance, and they’ve added Sundays since June. “Our sign still says ‘open Tuesday to Saturday’,” he laughs, “but people like to have a secret about a restaurant.” 
Speaking of secrets, another he lets me in on is in the form of a dish called ‘cedar plank salmon’, a remnant from his old restaurant, Brasserie Flipp. It is not on the menu here, but they cook two or three a day, requested by people in the know. But Bosley is quick to point out that there is no intention of pretentiousness. “It’s not about elite clients and secret handshakes. We really aim to be relaxed and approachable, both with our food and our service. It’s about service and not servitude, and great tasting food.”

This comes through in something that often surprises guests: Martin Bosley regularly answers the phone himself, and serves food to tables. And he has no rules about minimum orders – if a guest wants only a coffee on the deck rather than a full meal, they won’t be turned away.

Part of his overall food philosophy comes from the fact that he doesn’t just love to cook food, he is involved in all things food. He has been the Listener’s food columnist for two years now, and has another regular column in Air New Zealand’s Kia Ora magazine. His latest book, Martin Bosley Cooks, is a compilation of those columns.

Bosley thinks New Zealand can become the world’s premier fine cuisine destination, and strongly believes that the way to achieve this is to address the way we dine. “New Zealand really wants to have a dining culture, and it believes it does, but we aren’t there yet. The only place that’s going to happen is around the dining table. We want people to come to New Zealand and enjoy our food, so we need them to come into our restaurants and go eat with families who enjoy eating and cooking food. We export all these great products, but we’ve been the world’s pantry for too long. Now we need to set the table and invite some faraway friends to come and eat with us here.” His next book will expand on this theme. 

Interestingly, he finds it hard to tell me what his favourite meal is. “I really love food, so I suppose it’s whatever I’m eating at the time!” He cooks at home as well as at work. He sees every dish that goes out of the restaurant kitchen, works every lunchtime and four evenings a week, and is constantly over at tables to discuss ingredients. 
Despite this, he insists he doesn’t yell and scream in the kitchen because he doesn’t need to. “I’ve got great staff, some really fantastic, passionate people.” He has a staff of 25 at the moment and has had practically zero turnover in the last four years. In this industry that has got to be an achievement! Not only that, but new CVs arrive every week, he says. 

I ask if he subscribes to the ‘sustainable cooking’ school of thought. “I am big on sustainability and traceability, but I find the whole ‘cook local, cook seasonal’ catch-cry quite amusing. That’s what we’ve always done! People say ‘it’s great to see you cook seasonally’ and I go ‘how else would I cook?’ “I would never use imported asparagus and stone fruit out of season just because I feel like it. My asparagus is from Levin! And people ask me about my fish – I can show you the box it came in, which says the name of the boat it was from that day. I can even give you the guy’s cellphone number, and he can tell you what the conditions were like on the day he caught it.” 

What’s next for Martin Bosley? “We are actually exploring opening a restaurant in Tokyo,” he says. Just back from eight days of cooking in Tokyo, he calls it a “food-lover’s dream”. 

“We used their ingredients in the New Zealand way, and they loved it. They are a very traditional culture, steeped in tradition, but they are also crazy about new things and will dare to do things another way. 
“And we have a great message to send out overseas about our food!”