Asher Boote is celebrating the 10th year of his Wellington restaurant Hillside Kitchen after recently considering walking away.
“It was a pretty deep, dark place when you think about stepping away from your life’s work, and all the turmoil that comes with that and the number of people you know you’d affect if you made that decision”, Boote told the Herald in a sit-down interview.
The Wellington hospitality scene was rocked in 2023 when Field & Green and Shepherd announced in quick succession they would be closing their doors at the end of the year.
“The big concern there is that those are really good restaurants, like really good restaurants, some of the best in the country - not just in Wellington,” Boote said.
The adage of cream rising to the top wasn’t ringing true.
Boote felt the weight of multiple families on his shoulders because as an owner-operated restaurant, he works directly alongside his employees and has personal relationships with local suppliers.
“The emotional weight of that is huge and then you add onto that, the three years of just trudging forward with that weight on your back.
“You’ve got to make that decision - do you keep going?”.
Boote decided to speak out about the mental toll in a social media post in November - to bring a conversation happening behind the scenes in the hospitality world out into the open.
The response was huge.
Messages flooded in from people working in the industry saying how much it meant to them, customers knocked on the door to check in and Boote’s landlord was on the phone the next day just to have a chat.
A raft of bookings were also made which saw the restaurant through to summer.
It reminded Boote why doing it “the hard way” was worthwhile.
“Hillside is built in a way, especially as it’s evolved over the years, to set a new example of how hospitality can be socially conscious. How staff can work sensible hours and not be destroyed in the process of trying to make good food.”
Boote has worked as a chef for more than 20 years. In his past experience, he would get paid for about half the hours he worked which was 80-90 hour weeks.
Hillside’s menu is structured so his staff can have a life outside of the restaurant.
Sustainability is also important to Boote. Hillside has only generated six bags of rubbish this year whereas most restaurants would use one or two bags a day, he said.
Ingredients are sourced from growers within a 100km radius, grown in the restaurant’s garden or foraged in the surrounding hills of Wellington.
The resulting vegetarian dishes are then served as a multi-course, set menu. The restaurant is an intimate experience with just 22 seats.
Taking a unique approach is what Boote thinks will make high-end restaurants like Hillside stand out rather than shrink away.
This is where he thinks the future of high-end dining lies.
“I think we’re going to see a larger split between the higher-end dining and more sustenance dining”, Boote said.
“Cheap, cheerful, I’m paying the money because I can’t be bothered cooking and I just want to eat something decent made by a professional, to... this is a special occasion, I want to go out and have something that’s completely different, I want to spend 2-3 hours and be distracted from the world and be looked after.”
Boote expected to see more small, eclectic offerings going forward rather than the large-scale high-end dining that has recently dominated the food scene.
“Find your niche and be really good at that. It will inevitably draw people in,” he said.
As for how Hillside is doing now, it’s still down on pre-Covid-19 levels.
It’s slightly better than last year and future bookings are showing a strong spring and summer ahead.
“One of the things that we’ve really picked up on, that came out of last summer, is international tourists coming back which was never a big part of our market previously but we’re seeing more of,” Boote said.
Tourists have been making reservations before they arrive in the country. For example, Boote got an email from someone who visited two years ago and had recommended a friend dine at Hillside who is visiting from the Netherlands.
Locally, yes, working from home and cuts to the public service have had an impact. Hillside has also hosted farewell dinners for people moving to Australia.
But Boote said the mood is starting to change after the doom and gloom of the cost-of-living crisis.
“As soon as we saw interest rates are going to drop, it’s overnight that people start booking again and think about going out.
“We understand, there’s pressure on everyone, we’re in the same boat.”
Boote felt there was a public perception that restauranteurs lived in flash houses and owned sports cars.
That wasn’t the case for most New Zealand restaurants where chances are, you’ll find the owner working in the kitchen and doing dishes half the time, he said.
Small restaurants could be major players in making communities great, Boote said.
“Let’s not forget, restaurants are where people go to celebrate the good times. There’s a real value socially in restaurants and that’s the part that I think gets missed.”
Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.
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