Farm kitchen a dream for chef

Nearly 10 years ago when Fresh first spoke to chef Gus Hayden about his new venture creating boutique luxury preserves, his long-term goal was to establish his own commercial kitchen. This month he achieved that goal. Rebecca Fox goes along for a look.

Paint fumes float down the path as we clamber up the muddy path in search of Gus Hayden.

Behind a new fence and planter boxes is a shiny green shed, windows covered to prevent paint splatter. Inside the painters are hard at work and so is Hayden, busily installing Ceratone on the ceiling of his new kitchen.

There is not much of this new endeavour Hayden has not had his hands on, working alongside the professionals and project managing as they erected the "up-specked shed" for his long-awaited professional kitchen.

Hayden is the chef behind the Augustine’s of Central range of handmade preserves, jams and chutneys.

Since he started the business in rented kitchens in Wānaka in the early 2010s, preserving Central Otago apricots in riesling syrup, he has wanted his own kitchen.

Now, after years of dreaming and planning, it is becoming a reality. Thanks to the generosity of his family, he has been able to build what has become known as his "farmstore and kitchen" in the backyard of his parents’ Fat Weka Farm on the outskirts of Portobello.

Hayden and partner Jana Reulecke moved from Wānaka to Portobello in 2022 when their baby son arrived prematurely and have never left, preferring the quietness of Otago Peninsula to the bustle of a growing Wānaka.

"We could never have had this space in Wānaka."

Making the goal a reality has not been without its challenges — gaining resource consent, installing water and septic tanks, upgrading the power supply, parking and disability access — but he and Reulecke are nearly there, roughly two years after they began drawing up the first plans.

"It’s been a learning curve. The longest process was getting the consents."

While they initially planned to build a kitchen, they decided to extend the concept, "future proof" it, so Hayden could do what he loved — cook good food from fresh, locally grown produce for the public — as well as run Augustine’s of Central.

"I’m a chef, I need to cook. I can’t just be filling jars for the rest of my life and I’ve never owned by own hospitality business before."

So they built an open kitchen with room for a "long lunch-style" table and room to seat up to 25-30 inside and more outside if the weather is good.

"John, our local builder, has made us a beautiful long table made out of recycled Baltic pine that came to our shores as packing around John Deere tractors."

They envisage Augustine’s of Portobello starting out small, showcasing the products Hayden makes for Augustine's in pastries, pies and fruit cakes both sweet and savoury, and also for evening dining, private functions and workshops.

"In the daytime it’ll operate like a cafe. It’ll be just me in the kitchen for a start making stuff that will showcase our preserves and a small menu."

Their consent enables them to open three days and three nights a week plus run workshops, classes, nature and foraging tours once a week.

He also hopes to get back to the type of cooking he used to love doing as a private chef for hunting lodges in Wānaka.

"We’ll run it like a ‘trust the chef’ menu using seasonal stuff from the farm and from our range, possibly showcasing local stuff as well."

It will also be a treat working in a kitchen he has designed to his own specifications.

"Being designed by chef, it’ll really work. Over half the building is kitchen."

Being open only three days a week will enable Hayden the time to continue to run the preserving side of the business and also develop it, something he has struggled doing the past few years as he has been using a commercial kitchen in the Waitaki Valley, a few hours’ drive from home.

"It’s the problem with product development. Time is quite limited due to fruit ripening but now it’s going to be just there and I can play around with things that grow out there."

Hayden also found during the pandemic and since there has been more demand for his preserves.

His biggest customers are in Auckland, where the products are sold at specialty food stores such as Farro Fresh.

"Everyone was treating themselves to different foods and there were more shops stocking the jars."

He admits it could be a struggle juggling hospitality and bottling in peak apricot preserving season.

"Obviously our stone fruit still has to come from Central. When apricots come, they come fast and ripen fast. There will be a lot of long and late nights and we’ll probably slow down on the hospitality front during preserving season. But we just need to open and see how things go."

Surrounding the kitchen is the native bush his mother Jeannie and father, actor Peter Hayden, have been enhancing and planting for many years along with some heritage apple trees, blackcurrants and gooseberries and, more recently, extended beds of rhubarb, just a short walk up a track. The start of an orchard is being planted on a north facing hill as well.

"I’ve done a fair amount of gardening but Mum and Dad are the true keen gardeners, especially Mum, she is the true green-fingered individual. I’ll help out with the heavy stuff."

They want people to visit, sit down and enjoy a drink and something to eat and then maybe go for a wander up the valley. There will be no takeaway coffees or disposable cups.

"We want people to sit down and have a minute among the trees and the birds," says Reulecke, who does the marketing and social media for Augustine's and is spearheading both business’ sustainability goals.

"We want it to be unique and special."

There is also an entrance to the Dunedin City Council’s new Hereweka-Harbour Cone hiking track just past the entry to the property.

An old wool shed next to the new shed has been turned into a "logistics" shed where Hayden labels and packs his products.

"It was the first job we did," he said.

"We retrofitted this, it’s practically a whole new building."

It is also storage for his collection of jars and old preserving paraphernalia which they hope to use to decorate the new kitchen.

They now have the decking to finish and the landscaping around the buildings to be complete before opening in another month or so.

"We’re going to open softly."