The Restaurateur
Graham found his restaurant because he used to surf a lot and loved surfing out of Scarborough beach at the point off the jetty and he always looked at the building (that was to be come the defining point in his career) even though it was just a little old classic tearooms and was once referred to by a restaurant critic as reminiscent of a toilet block, he thought God that would make a great restaurant and coming back from Noosa and having worked in a restaurant on the water his mind could reconcile with it’s ugly exterior but amazing potential. When Graham heard it was for sale he thought I’ll just go for a look at it and they bought it. Graham was absolutely aghast when he moved in thinking to himself man what have I done!
The name Scarborough Fare came from the location, the beach. Most people think it came from the song, he loved Simon and Garfunkel’s music and all music from that era but Scarborough was the beach and fare was what they did. It was the bill of fare, the menu basically of what you found at Scarborough on any given day and was all local freshly sourced product. They didn’t get deliveries out there; you had to go into town and pick up your stuff from the fishmonger, butcher and fruit and vege guy. Graham learnt a lot by going to the shop and talking to the guys. He was taught how to select good product as an apprentice chef,. Graham knew what to look for as a kid growing up he had direct access to home grown produce and meat so he knew exactly what to look for, it is this basic respect for food that has been he cornerstone of Grahams success..
Graham’s restaurant quickly became well known with a fantastic group of loyal followers. Graham’s customers could come back week after week and never have the same thing twice it was a challenging way to cook but it was where his roots were and it was a great point of difference. Graham and his team changed the menu everyday. Everything that they served they made in house – bread, pastries, custards and stocks. Dianna Mechen, who Graham still keeps in touch with, was a wonderful pastry chef and baker and a great help in these crazy days.
In Grahams words “we were lucky to be in the restaurant business at a very interesting time because we had gone through nouvelle cuisine, it was still there at the beginning and then it sort of changed a bit although we were never into the whole itsy bitsy little lettuce leaf on a plate with one cherry tomato and trying to call it food. We served real food for real people but we took inspiration from some of the nouvelle ideas”.
Graham thrived on the energy, the camaraderie, the inspiration that came from being part of the kitchen, being able to change and do different things and experiment, working with other chefs as they come to the fore. It was a great time to be involved in the industry; they started to get a lot of product coming on the market. The kitchen staff used to get kelp off the jetty in a bucket, and the apprentice was sent down to haul the baby kelp, vegetables were grown in Grahams home garden, he had his own chickens and their Crème Anglaise looked out of this world because it would look like it had food colouring in it but it was actually because the chickens were free range and the yolks were beautiful. Friends and family brought in the best rhubarb ( and other produce) you ever saw in your life. Graham (and his wife Glenda) had lots of people that were interested in what they were doing and this Graham credits his team ( Graham built a team of young dedicated people around him who he saw through their apprenticeships and encouraged to be a part of the restaurant from menu planning to recipe development and front of house, everyone had an input and because of that they were and extremely loyal, tight knit group)and his customers were the backbone of their success.
At Scarborough Fare there were many proud moments. The most significant ones for Graham personally was the Listener and Montana Awards “we didn’t even know there was Listener Montana Awards out there, we had just started the restaurant in the January and then we got this letter to say we had been selected as a finalist and could we please go to Wellington”. Graham wondered what is this all about, anyway they got up there and in Grahams words “bugger me if we didn’t win the best BYO restaurant for the Country I think in the 6 years they were there they won the award 5 out of 6 times the best BYO for the north part of the South Island. Scarborough Fare was the best BYO in the country twice or three times and runner up for best food in the country against all the hotels in 1991. When asked of his proudest moment Graham recalls “we started off with an award and we finished with an award and that was one of my proudest achievements that our standard never waned from the time we started to the time we finished. An old adage in the kitchen that I was bought up with is “You are only as good as your last meal, the last meal of the night on any given day has to be as outstanding as the first meal you put up at the beginning of the night and the same sort of philosophy ran through the whole business”.
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