A long-held wish to return to Central Otago has come true for high profile Dunedin chef Michael Coughlin. Rebecca Fox talks to him about returning to a restaurant which holds special memories.
Dunedin is home for award-winning chef Michael Coughlin but Central Otago is where his heart and soul is.
So the chance to return to work in the region was one not to be missed, especially given the job opportunity in question was at Olivers in Clyde.
It was where he spent some of his formative years as a chef in the days of Fleur Sullivan (incidentally she was a witness at his marriage) and where he married his wife Marianne.
Twenty-five years later, he has returned to a transformed Olivers as executive chef.
''I've been away 25 years. It's great to come back. You settle in pretty quickly as it's such a friendly little village.''
He and Marianne, who was brought up in Ettrick and still has family in Central Otago, had promised themselves that when their children were old enough they would look to make ''our way back through here''.
Their youngest son is still at King's High School so they had decided Marianne would remain in Dunedin with him and the couple would ''commute'' in the holidays and weekends, he said.
''Eventually, we'll sell up and come up.''
For the chef who owned Dunedin restaurant Bell Pepper Blues for 18 years, the move to Central Otago meant finishing his role at Hotel St Clair's restaurant and bar, Pier 24.
His contract at Pier 24 ran out in February, ending five years at the helm of the luxury hotel's kitchen. It was time to walk away but, after developing the restaurant from the ground up, he admitted to struggling with the concept of being a guest rather than in charge.
He left behind a competent team of chefs - his existing staff have all moved up a step to fill the gap - which he would continue to ''keep an eye on'' and hoped one day to possibly return for a ''cameo'' appearance, he said.
Now focused on the new venture, Coughlin admitted his projects get more complicated and complex each time.
Pier 24 was a big project: it started off with just plans on paper and then he had to create the restaurant out of it. Olivers took it to another scale.
Added to that was the vagaries of the seasons, which meant a flat-out summer season and quieter winter, although with the three businesses under one roof he imagined it would not get too quiet.
''You have to make hay while the sun shines.''
He was anticipating a busy few months after a photograph of the new business was put online and had 500 likes in eight hours. Then a profile of himself went up and had 100 likes in very little time.
''You get the feeling people are really hanging out to see the place.''
It probably meant he would not get much time to play the guitar he had brought up with him.
''I thought in my spare time I'd be able to get back to doing that but it's still in the case and likely to stay there.''
Overseeing the Olivers kitchen, which services all three businesses in the complex, was his sixth business endeavour, including the two bakeries he ran early in his career.
Because Olivers is a restaurant, bakery and deli and cafe, Coughlin has had to hire not only restaurant chefs, but bakers and pastry chefs.
It had been a challenge to find the right staff given the difficulties in finding permanent accommodation in the area, but ''you always find you know someone who knows someone who has something available''.
Staff were coming from far and wide, including one New Zealand chef returning home from Dubai where he worked in a five-star restaurant.
He also planned to develop a relationship with Otago Polytechnic's Cromwell Campus in the hope some of its graduates could come through the restaurant.
Owners of the complex David and Andrea Ritchie had done an ''amazing job'' transforming the historic complex without losing its history, he said.
''They've used a lot that was already here. A lot of the old has been repurposed and put back in.''
It meant he could still see the old Olivers in the new place. It had just had a ''breath of fresh air'', he said. Retaining its name was a nice touch under the Olivers Victoria Store banner.
''They've retained the soul of Olivers. It's what I would have imagined.''
As for the food he was planning to serve, it would not be about breaking new territory, instead encompassing what the region had to offer.
He hoped to develop relationships with local orchardists and set up his own restaurant garden so he could grow his own product.
''The style of food will be the same approach as at Pier: integrity, honesty and not overly meddling with it.
''Gone are the days of chefs turning it into something unrecognisable - it'll be food without ego attached.''
He had done his days of ''ego'' and now it was about the food, he said. His young chefs were always keen to try out the new but he tried to remind them not to ''forget about the story they were telling'' with the food.
''Getting out the foam guns and clarification kits is not my style of cooking.''
