He loved Elton John, Phil Collins and Rod Stewart but loathed some other big names to the point that he banned them. Tony Astle helmed one of Auckland’s top restaurants for almost 50 years - he opens up on celebrity customers, love and loss, and the state of hospitality. Shayne
Lunch with... Tony Astle - the godfather of fine dining opens up on celebrity guests, bans, food prices and 48 years of secrets and scandal
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Tony Astle says the standard of food in New Zealand restaurants has vastly improved over 50 years, but prices are too high. Photo / Greg Bowker
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Astle, now in his early 70s, cut his teeth on the restaurant floor as a 15-year-old trainee waiter - early on, he took himself off to elocution lessons after he felt cowed by his colleagues about his own accent. “I thought, I’ll fix you lot. It was probably because I was trying to fit in.”
Antoine’s - the Parnell Rd restaurant where he held court for almost 50 years, from July 1973 until it closed in December 2020 - had some incredible wait staff, he says. Many of them made “so much money”.
He ensured that everyone at Antoine’s - even those in the kitchen - had time on the dining room floor, with customers.
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“Beth was an amazing front-of-house,” he says, referring to his beloved wife who died in 2021 from cancer.
“She had the patience of a saint with staff, whereas I would have just given them a smack around the head.”
If he had been in charge out front, “I’d probably go to jail!”
Today at Bivacco on Auckland’s waterfront, Astle is on best behaviour, displaying his own patience as he inquires three times about the wine that has caught his eye on the lunchtime menu. I begin to worry for the waiter - there is a slight language barrier adding to the confusion - but Astle remains friendly. The waiter is actually doing a good job.
Astle made a few fierce enemies and lots of loyal friends and it appears it does not take much to rile him, or vice versa.
“To this day, I still go out of my way to annoy people,” he says in his new book, Let Them Eat Tripe.
He has a fiery reputation. He outlines some hissy fits - some that led to accidents (a knife in the foot for a waiter) others more purposeful (a steak hurled around a staff member’s head).
Astle was a Gordon Ramsay before Gordon Ramsay.
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The book - an often poignant love letter to Antoine’s, Beth, his family and his time in hospitality - contains a sizeable menu of infamous clashes and incidents inside the walls of 333 Parnell Rd.
It’s a rollicking read but beware, it contains some nuts - including a thief or two, entitled customers, and some A-list arseholes.
He says he repeatedly tells students these days that the customer is always right. “Unless you are dealing with me. Then I am always right.”
Restaurant bans
Astle banned many people from Antoine’s over his five decades, some with good reason. Others simply had opposite political views.
Food critics received a short shrift if they bagged Antoine’s. He had a long-running feud with Metro editor Warwick Roger. Geraldine Johns, who has ghostwritten the book, was banned for a time, but she’s at lunch with Astle today, and they’re now good buddies.
Despite his working-class upbringing in Christchurch - his father worked for the railways while his mother raised five children often while working two jobs and learning woodwork - Astle has strong right-wing views.
He loves politics - he’d rush to Parliament for Question Time during his afternoon break when he was working at Des Britten’s The Coachman in Wellington.
Specifically, he loves the National Party’s politics.
He is close to John and Bronagh Key and Christopher Luxon. Labour politicians dined at Antoine’s over the years - including David Lange - but the likes of Helen Clark, David Cunliffe and Jacinda Ardern were all proactively banned (they were quite likely unaware). Kim Dotcom was also banned.
Former Newstalk ZB broadcaster Leighton Smith, one of Astle’s friends, held his radio retirement dinner at Antoine’s in 2018. Astle gave a speech; he did not hold back on his views of Ardern.
Astle used to sometimes appear on the radio with Smith. “Leighton was hilarious because he’d say ‘God you make me look like a tinsel fairy when you get going’. Not that it takes much for me to say something anyway.”
A-list superstars
Over the 48 years of Antoine’s, a slew of A-list international stars and their entourages rang the doorbell for entry (yes, there was a doorbell).
On one famous night, Elton John, Rod Stewart and George Benson all turned up separately. Astle cleared the rest of the restaurant as quickly as possible. He and the famous trio were still there at 6am, sitting and drinking - worse for wear - in the courtyard. “These guys certainly had some stamina,” he says in the book.
When Beth arrived for work at 6am she promptly turned around and went home when she saw the state of her husband and his three mates.
Two nights later, writes Astle, Beth enjoyed some equilibrium - her own musical idol, Cliff Richard, turned up at the restaurant.
Astle describes Elton John as “one of my best customers” - a regular at Antoine’s whenever he was in New Zealand for a concert tour since 1980.
He loved the duck.
John liked Antoine’s because no one annoyed him there, writes Astle. On one occasion, the press got wind that the piano man was at Antoine’s. Astle told the photographers their information was incorrect. They didn’t believe him; Astle says they only left after he turned a hose on them.
Phil Collins, Astle says, came in by himself.
“I’d just sit with him. He just wanted someone normal to talk to.”
Astle says he is not seduced by stardom. “They just love having normal people who talk to you because you’ve got no agenda.”
However, he says he found Kiss singer Gene Simmons “abominable”.
When a waiter spilt a tiny amount of water on Simmons’ shoes, the musician took umbrage. He said he would not be paying his bill.
It was evident any damage to his shoes was negligible, says Astle.
Simmons stood his ground. Astle firstly threatened to call police and then he called his lawyer, who spoke directly to Simmons. Sure, don’t pay the bill, Astle’s lawyer told Simmons, but you will be locked up.
“Simmons paid the bill in full, then he and his ghastly bandmates - awful people, all of them - departed. I took great delight in banning them forthwith,” writes Astle.
Astle met James Bond actor Roger Moore on a Concorde flight between New York and Paris.
Moore left the supersonic flight with Astle’s business card in hand, and on a later trip to New Zealand he visited Antoine’s for a meal. “I told you I’d drop by.”
Rita Hayworth, meanwhile, had a magical allure, writes Astle.
“Unfortunately her elegance did not extend to her eating habits. The Princess deigned to dine on avocado and smoked eel but rather than peck at it daintily, she mashed it all up on the plate like her hand was a food processor. She just destroyed it.”
Another well-known local businessman displayed even worse manners when he ordered a pig’s trotter.
“I made the mistake of looking over the chef’s bar. What I saw was like a scene from a Fellini movie. Here before me was this very large person - and it was like he was eating his own hand. He was so excited, sitting there sucking this pig’s foot in a frenzy, his little piggy legs jiggling under the table like a farmyard animal. The sound effects were unbelievable. Even the people at the next table were horrified.”
A broken and repaired relationship
The book opens with a chapter about one of Astle’s biggest and earliest fallings out, with a couple he nicknames Over and Out.
They went into business together with Astle but within a year the Antoine’s partnership had turned sour.
Gordon Pollock, a regular customer, gave Astle $70,000 to buy the couple out.
He was just 22. “I had dropped out of school at the age of 15 with no qualifications. I had no formal food training and had always worked for others. In a matter of minutes, I had become sole owner of the most elite restaurant in the city.”
As a youngster, growing up in a small home in Christchurch, Astle’s love for cooking was inspired by television chef Graham Kerr. It also meant the bonus of being able to skip church on Sunday as he prepared the traditional roast for his family and generally avoiding sport which he detested.
“Apart from granting me a leave pass from church, cooking allowed me to express myself: I just loved being in the kitchen and knocking stuff together. I always baked. I always cooked.”
Some of the book’s most poignant moments focus on the relationship with his father.
He remembers his dad coming home for dinner from the pub after 6 o’clock closing time. His mother would serve dinner to him as he sat in the bath, the plate atop a specially constructed wooden tray. His father ate his food in the relative peace of the bathroom, away from four children aged under 7.
As was common in those days, his father would physically discipline Astle. “When I got hit by my father, I deserved it because I was horrible.”
But worse for him, was a later estrangement.
“My father did not want me to cook,” writes Astle.
“In fact, my father did not want me to pursue much of what I wanted from adolescence into adulthood - and our relationship was seriously, painfully and permanently fractured as a result.”
His father did not believe men should be in the kitchen and he later shut down from his son when he left home, bound for Wellington, to be a trainee chef. “He erased me from his life.”
On his mother’s insistence, his father attended Astle’s 40th birthday at Antoine’s - and gave a gracious speech.
“He said sorry for never supporting me,” writes Astle.
He regrets how he responded. “I was not as big a man as he was that night. I did not accept the apology. I just couldn’t because the whole thing was still festering inside me. All I could say was: ‘Well, thanks very much indeed’.”
His father was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in the mid-1990s, a disease that left him frail.
Shortly before his father’s death, Astle spent a whole day with him “and we talked it all out”.
Once again his father apologised. “He said he felt very bad about how he’d given me such a hard time. He had felt terrible about it for many, many years. This time, I did accept his apology and thanked him wholeheartedly for all he said.”
His father died a little later, from a heart attack. He was spared the full ravages of motor neurone disease.
“Now that he’s gone, well, I think about him quite a lot and I can understand him now. In fact, I suspect I am actually probably very similar to him in a lot of ways,” Astle writes.
“Unlike my parents, I’ve had a bit of a charmed life - a selfish life. I haven’t had to bring up five children on no money. What we think is difficult these days is nothing compared to what they saw as difficult.”
Over lunch, Astle says: “He was a very good man. I’m not knocking him at all - it was just those days. He was a very sporty man - a man’s man.”
Restaurant prices
When Antoines opened, mains were $4, soups $2 and desserts $1.50. These were big prices in 1973; Astle said his accountant baulked.
But over the next five decades, Astle built an incredibly loyal customer base - up to three generations of the same families would become regulars.
Price plays a “huge” factor in people’s dining habits, says Astle.
“We had that nostalgia menu, which funnily enough was the only thing we’ve ever sold at Antoine’s no matter what. We went through cuisine nouveau, cuisine minceur, we did all that stuff.
“But over 50 years, the only thing people came back to were duck, lamb shanks, tripe, all that stuff. Lots of onion soup and those sort of things and seafood chowders - that was our whole nostalgia menu.
“Every time we got clever and did other things, foam or something, even though I didn’t like foam - you’d try just to keep the kids interested - the only thing ever sold at Antoine’s was the nostalgia menu.
“You have to remember the people. We started with the grandparents of the people who were our last customers. But the whole family still came.”
People used to call Antoines expensive, he said. But he points out that meals came as one - there were no additional charges for vegetables or fries.
He didn’t have GST on the prices - just a disclaimer at the foot of each page of the menu that prices were GST-excluded.
John Key had him on about that once. “Well, it’s your tax!” responded Astle.
Astle says the standard of food in New Zealand restaurants has vastly improved over 50 years, but prices are too high. They reflect the costs and demands of staff, he says.
“It’s just so expensive. We go to Europe each year, we did 38 Michelin Star restaurants the last time we were there. You know, it wasn’t that much dearer than a normal restaurant here, which is a worry. People are struggling and they can’t pay the rent.”
He was at Bianca at Ellerslie recently - he loved the food, and found the prices reasonable, with the most expensive main at $38.
“A lot of them you go to at the moment, you’re up in the $60 [mark] and then you have to pay $15 for fries.
“But that’s also wages and other things that are happening.”
Workers are turning down dishwashing jobs at $30 an hour, he says. “They want more. It’s ridiculous. Now, the expectations are very high. If somebody gets $30 to do dishes, the waiter out front wants $40 don’t they, if not more.
“I don’t think restaurants can afford to do that. They must pass it on and that’s exactly what’s happening.”
Beth - a love story
Astle’s softer side shines through when he talks and writes about Beth. Theirs is a love story that started when Astle had returned to Christchurch to buy and briefly work in a dairy. They later moved north, became engaged, and their marriage blossomed for all of those years on Parnell Rd.
It was a partnership in the truest sense - Beth would start work at Antoine’s at 6am and Astle would finish late at night (guests willing) six days a week.
He says in the book that his wife - who died on March 30, 2021 - “sits on my shoulder every single day - guiding me, hopefully, in the right direction”.
“I love her. I miss her. I thank her with all my heart.”
Their legacy lives on. In July last year, AUT unveiled the Tony and Beth Astle Culinary Theatre at the school of hospitality and tourism; Astle is fully involved in helping assist future chefs and restaurateurs as an honorary mentor. “I can enter our theatre and discuss anything with anyone.”
Asle has also launched Antoine’s by Astle. He regularly cooks his famous recipes privately for patrons and he is developing a line of Antoine’s sauces. The dream lives on.
A Bivacco review
On his Newstalk ZB slot a week after our lunch, Astle served up a mixed, mainly complimentary review of our lunch at Bivacco.
He loved the trevally crudo - an “unbelievably magnificent” dish. But with the beef carpaccio and tongue dishes, he felt there were just too many additional overpowering flavours. They just needed a little tweaking, he suggested.
He’s always been predisposed to offal and tripe, his theory is that this might stem from his days as a jaundiced baby and being fed mashed brains and liver.
I’m not sure he was particularly enamoured with me selecting a 0% beer, Sawmill’s Bare Beer - but I was on a 100-day alcohol-free run, and it seemed the best and safest bet. He’s much more a wine connoisseur - remember, Antoine’s used to sell $20,000 bottles.
“Our biggest selling beer was Lion Red,” he says.
All his older customers loved it. “That was their amber - it was very funny. People used to laugh at it, but I mean, we sold it for $12!”
- Let Them Eat Tripe: The Story of Antoine’s, Tony Astle with Geraldine Johns, published by Bateman Books, RRP $45, Release Date October 2024.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor. As well as a weekly media column, he has a regular interview series featuring noteworthy and leading New Zealanders including Wayne Brown, Ruby Tui, Paddy Gower, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Scotty Stevenson, Chlöe Swarbrick, Simon Power, Josh and Helen Emett, Sir Ian Taylor, David Kirk, Sir Ashley Bloomfield, Paul Henry, Simon Barnett, Sophie Moloney, Brian and Hannah Tamaki, Sir Grahame Sydney, David Lomas, Carrie Hurihanganui, Sir Russell Coutts, Steven O’Meagher, Juliet Peterson and Brendan Lindsay.
