Chef and owner Lesley Chandra says customer spend had halved at Sidart, his fine dining restaurant in Ponsonby that has just closed.
Lesley Chandra was named one of the top chefs in the world the same week he faced liquidation at Sidart, his fine dining restaurant in Ponsonby, Auckland.
News of Sidart’s closure broke yesterday - the latest high-profile hospitality casualty in New Zealand’s most restaurant-heavy city.
“I couldn’t keep going,” Chandra told the Herald today. “Do I keep digging myself into a deeper hole, or should I just stop?”
He revealed customer spend had dropped from an average $250-$300 per head to more like $130-$150 over the four-year period he’d owned the restaurant. Monthly rent at the upstairs venue with SkyTower views was $10,300, and diner numbers had dropped.
“That hurts as well. You could have 20 people and do just a few thousand dollars. When I first took over, that would have been a five grand night.”
Sidart’s final service was last Saturday. Chandra says all five fulltime staff have been paid out and have new jobs. He is now a chef for hire. This weekend, he’ll be helping out at Michael Meredith’s Britomart restaurant Mr Morris.
Chandra confirmed that, as he was facing the decision Sidart would have to shut, he learned he’d made The Best Chef Awards’ list in Milan, Italy. He was among 421 other chefs, including three others from New Zealand (Tala’s Henry Onesemo, Forest’s Plabita Florence and Jack Cashmore from The Chef’s Table at Blue Duck Station) to receive a “one knife” accolade. Zennon Wijlens (Paris Butter) gained “two knife” status and Vaughan Mabee (Amisfield) received the top “three knife” award at the same competition, described by organisers as “the biggest global culinary event”.
Chandra did not attend the awards which were “a huge surprise and very humbling ... The confidence [boost] of getting that and then like, ‘oh, I’ve actually failed - does it really make a difference’?”
Chandra was financed into Sidart by former employers, Sid and Chand Sahrawat. He says he still owes them money and “I have to work something out with them”.
He took over the restaurant in September 2021, but a long Covid lockdown meant he didn’t open for service until December.
“Times were great, everyone was going out, the first year was really good, the second was good. Last year and this year, it’s been going down and down and down.”
He blamed the decline on multiple factors.
“People are obviously watching their pennies and we’re at the higher end of the market. If you’re going to go out, you’re going somewhere cheaper – cheap and cheerful. A lot of people used to come for celebrations and anniversaries. That whittled down. And the tourist market was big for us, 60% of our revenue, and that was really, really down.
“I steadied the ship for as long as I could, but there comes a time when you just say ‘okay, is this right to keep going?’ My mental health was not doing so well. My creativity – I was not the chef I wanted to be, and because I’ve got a young family, I had to think about them as well.”
Fiji-born Chandra moved to New Zealand as a 10-year-old. He has three children, aged 8, 6 and 3. His first cheffing job was at The Maple Room in Remuera, Auckland. More recently, he had worked at Baduzzi, Cassia, The French Cafe and Sidart.
“I’m not going to say ‘don’t open a restaurant’ because I think everyone should try. There is a risk to everything and if you do well, the rewards are there.
“But this was my first place and I think I was very inexperienced ... If I do open another place, it will maybe be much smaller, maybe not even fine dining. There’s a lot of lessons learned from this.”
Sidart is the latest in a string of high-profile Auckland restaurant closures. In 2024, that list included internationally famous chef Peter Gordon’s Homeland and, after 32 years on Ponsonby Rd, SPQR.
Chandra had attempted to pivot the Sidart menu into a cheaper, Italian-focused offering, but “the spend was even worse for us” and he’d returned to fine-dining after a three-month trial. He understood the restaurant had been a tough proposition for some diners.
“You’ve got to plan for it, you’ve got to save money for it. Some people were fortunate enough to not have to do that, but we also saw those clients spend their money elsewhere - like going overseas, instead of staying in New Zealand.”
He believed it had become “harder and harder” for restaurants at the top end.
“But I think now, probably because there’s not many left, those places will probably be doing better now. Summer is coming and it’s been said many times, but hopefully things will get better for hospitality ... if you’re in hospitality, you’ve always got to think positively, right? Once you start thinking negative, it’s all over.
“It’s gone backwards for so long, we have to go forwards at some point.”
Chandra says he’s never been an “Instagram chef” but he hopes his dishes at Sidart created - and evoked - memories.
“My dream was owning a restaurant. I mean, I did it. I didn’t do it all the way, but I tried. For me, putting a dish out there and someone eats it and they’re like ‘whoah, this takes me back to my childhood, or a special trip, or flavour’. If I can put that on a plate, I’ve done my job. That’s what I wanted to do. Make people happy.”
Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016 and is a senior journalist on its lifestyle desk. She is a former restaurant reviewer and holds a Masters in Gastronomy.