Mr Right - Simon Wright

Mr. Wright
A self-confessed control freak who doesn’t like “sticky fingers”, Simon Wright is one of this country’s best chefs and with good reason, as Linda Donald discovers.

When Londoner Simon Wright first came to New Zealand, to visit a friend, he thought it was a lovely place, but he wasn’t going to stay long. That was fourteen years ago and now he says he’s here for the long haul. This is his home.

But it nearly didn’t happen. A trip to Australia, took the young chef to a more cosmopolitan Sydney, more what he was used to – “faster pace, more aggression, more like home, but on a smaller scale” he reflects. Simon was in his element, but fortunately for us, fate intervened and the requirements of a work permit caught up with him. He left Australia, travelled through southeast Asia, then Singapore, where he worked briefly before circumstances again led him to New Zealand. He’s been here ever since, tempting us with fine food that surprises and delights.


Today Simon Wright is chef and owner of The French Café in Auckland’s Symonds Street, at the edge of the city’s centre. “You’ve got to be barmy”, he admits when asked what it takes to be a great chef. “You’ve got to be obsessed”. Unsurprisingly, m’aitre d’ and sommelier, Creghan Malloy Wright, his partner in business and life, calls the restaurant ‘his second wife’.

It’s not a new obsession for Simon, who grew up enjoying good food. “My Mum’s always been a great cook and used to make fantastic stuff”, he recalls, talking fondly of his memories of delicious dishes of roast guinea fowl braised with celery and tender lamb and prune casserole and says she is such a great chef, that even now, he doesn’t enjoy cooking for her.

With an appreciation for fine cuisine fuelled at home, the young Simon left school at 15 and headed down the culinary pathway. He started at the bottom working for a friend washing dishes, then moved on to cooking in hotels, attaining qualifications at the South East London College on his day off.

Though he describes his training as hard core French technique, Simon’s style has evolved into a fresh individual approach to traditional French cooking. It my not be exactly what his tutors taught him, but his customers certainly enjoy it.
Reviews and awards testify to his success. He received the Lewisham Award 2003 – Most Outstanding Chef, while the restaurant under his influence, has consistently been ranked with the best.

The accolades mirror comments of friends recently who were celebrating a family birthday at The French Café. They said the food was so delicious they had to stop themselves licking the plate clean and that was just the entrées. As the evening progressed, it got even better.

What is it that makes his cuisine so outstanding? A self-confessed control freak, Simon says that consistency is essential. “It starts with self-discipline”, he explains. “To do the same job everyday, three hundred odd days a year, you need to be able to cope and to make a perfect product every time. Then it depends on your suppliers to ensure you get the same produce every time as well”.

Simon says that to reach that stage has been a long battle, but now he has people who do the background work for him. “For example, if I want a particular vegetable, I have a vegetable supplier who will find someone to do it for me. If I want little baby courgette flowers, then he will make sure they are picked that morning and I’ll get them by lunchtime”. He adds that it’s a joy today to be able to include ingredients that were not even heard of in New Zealand a few years ago, like celeriac, baby fennel and wild rocket. He’s also very pleased to have finally found a fantastic organic meat supplier, who can be relied upon to deliver items like beef fillets of same size and weight each time.

Simon tends to deal with small suppliers, because that’s where the all- important need for consistency is met. Because the restaurant is small, (seating fifty-five), he prepares about twelve portions of everything from scratch each day and these are all made from fresh ingredients. The kitchen also bakes its own bread daily and always makes all its own pasta, ice creams and sorbets.

Simon’s expertise is backed by extensive experience in England prior to arriving in the Southern Hemisphere. Once qualified, Simon enhanced his skills by working in many top hotel kitchens and restaurants, several with one or more Michelin stars. This included a stint with the famous Marco Pierre White, whose personality is described as larger than life and whose successes include being both the youngest and only British chef to win three Michelin stars.

Simon’s down-under experience includes positions in many up-market restaurants in Sydney and Auckland. Perhaps the most important of these, was the then-new Mount Coast, because this is where he met his wife. The couple are now into their fifth year at the French Café, the last two as sole owners – an achievement that has taken working six days a week for four and a half years, to achieve.

“It’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle”, says Simon philosophically. “You get paid dreadfully and it’s the passion that drives you. You don’t have to be over intelligent, but you do have to have common sense. You need to be able to work hard and be self-motivated”. He concedes it’s demanding work and says it’s important to be strong physically. He wants to be a fit man, have heaps of energy, but has always found the Gym boring and discovered boxing four years ago. “I’m an absolute fanatic boxer”, he reveals. “I love boxing and do it twice a week. I do one on one with a trainer and then every now and then I get some head gear on and do some sparring”.

There’s also been the odd session of yoga and pilates with Creghan to help alleviate back pain brought on by standing on a hard concrete floor all day combined with being bent over a bench, in and out of an oven, as well as working in cramped spaces. I had notice he’s wearing black patent trainers with aircushions instead of the traditional steel-capped boots, but they are on trial for comfort not style.

Speaking of comfort, whre does he to go chill out? Though the Wrights only get one day of rest a week, invariably it is Coromandel and their house on the beach that they escape to. “It’s our little sanctuary”, says Simon. “Creghan and I go there almost every weekend without fail. We finish work on Saturday night and drive there and arrive at about 2am. Our time is spent walking on the beach, reading magazines, listening to music and cooking”.

Not a breakfast eater during the working week, Simon opts for the traditional on his days off: bacon and eggs or hot porridge perhaps served with fresh stewed rhubarb. For all other meals it’s Creghan who dons the chef’s apron here, preparing delicious meals that range from Thai, Kenyan, Moroccan curries, to fresh prawns in a crusty bread sandwich or a thick, rich lamb shank soup sprinkled with parmesan. Creghan gives Simon the list of ingredients to order in advance and they admit they probably eat the best food on the Coromandel Peninsula. In Simon’s words “We’re quite decadent”.

And as you might expect those magazines he reads, are all about food - anything and everything available on the subject. He also treasures his growing collection of cookbooks and doesn’t lend them out. His favourites change, but currently it is ‘The French Laundry Cookbook’ by world renowned Thomas Keller, chef/owner of the famous restaurant of the same name in the USA. Simon says, “To me, the book is an inspiration. Not even so much the food, but just the way he talks and describes things”.

When it comes to his own cooking preferences, Simon describes himself as a savoury man. “I don’t like sticky fingers”, he says simply. “What’s more as time goes on, I can’t be bothered weighing ingredients, which is important for pastry recipes. I do like desserts, but my favourite cooking is reconstructing things. Like today, I did galantine of oxtails. I braised a whole oxtail, then gently took it off the bone, keeping the meat in one piece. It was then stuffed with mushrooms, re-rolled and re-set. Finally it was sliced and braised again.

“I can’t stand serving things with bones. I don’t mind doing lamb cutlets, but I never do a whole quail and I would never serve a whole baby chicken or whole fish. There’s not enough technique for me. I also try and serve food I would like to eat myself”. Which rules out offal. Although every so often he will do brains or sweetbreads, he can’t stand liver or cleaning kidneys, so never serves them.

Nevertheless, Simon says you never stop learning and he likes to develop new ideas, by reading a lot and keeping up with what is going on. And his motives are not entirely selfish - it means he can pass new ideas on to young chefs training, to give them the best tools to develop their own cuisine in time.

He stresses how important it is in the business to develop your own taste and says many chefs don’t make it because they fail to do so. People’s taste buds are different and people come to his restaurant because the food suits them, Simon reasons.

His cooking certainly enjoys strong support from regulars, some who come twice a week and although he changes the menu monthly, to enjoy what’s in season, he’ll cook an old favourite or something special for them on request. For the lucky few, Simon will sometimes even take his talents to their home and prepare and serve dishes in there. Otherwise, he will be on site at The French Café cooking nearly every night, in a place he describes as his pride and joy.

And there is always something to inspire and titillate. Like the fresh NZ grown truffles, he has in now. Cooked gently in a little bit of olive oil to create “fantastic” truffle oil. The truffles will be removed when the oil is at it’s best, in a week or so and then the truffles will feature in a special dish on the menu. At a cost of $3,500 a kilo, Simon only bought a few grams and didn’t tell his wife the cost. He says it’s a case of enjoying a special ingredient as a chef, and not worrying about the profit margin.

It’s easy to see why his strong advice to career planners who might want to follow in his footsteps is, “You’ve got to be dedicated. Unfortunately that comes with hard work. It’s a big sacrifice, because you can never really do anything else. You can never go out on Friday and Saturday nights, because you will be working till midnight. When I first started cooking we used to work five to six days a week from eight in the morning till midnight. That’s all day, every day”.

His staff work hard, but get two days off and work in shifts. Simon maintains that you can’t be a good chef just doing eight hours a day. It means thinking food and that’s what separates the chefs from the cooks. Even after a long shift, he will stay to try a new dish because there’s just no time during the day. “There are so many people doing it, you’ve got to try and make yourself a bit different”, he points out.

He has certainly stood out in this country. Having been lucky enough to work for some of the great London chefs, he may not have started with a plan, but now he really wants to make The French Cafe, number one. Although it’s arguable he’s already there. Not happy to rest on his laurels, Simon is cooking up some ideas to re-vamp the restaurant’s interior, with a bigger emphasis on the outdoor space likely.

He would also like to write a cookbook and envisages something like his favourite ‘The French Laundry Cookbook’, probably something in the from a “thick and chefy”, a coffee table book.

Simon says he wouldn’t live anywhere else but Auckland. “Here I’ve got the best of both worlds. I’ve got my own business and I’ve got a beautiful house on the beach”. He’s also got a stunning wife, so what about little Wrights? “We might have a family”, muses Simon, “when there’s a spare five minutes”.


If you’d like to be adventurous, Simon outlines one of his special recipes, using fresh courgette flowers - a delicious different taste experience - plus a suggestion for the perfect wine match.


STUFFED COURGETTE FLOWERS
(with fresh tomato sauce and basil oil)
Serves 4

500g roma (or vine-ripened) tomatoes
½ onion
3 cloves garlic
1 bunch basil
200mls olive oil
12 courgette flowers
cheese:- 200g parmesan., 200g ricotta, 200g taleggio
Little milk and flour
S & P

Remove calyx from top of tomatoes, cut out scar and make a criss-cross with knife. Plunge tomatoes into boiling water for 10 seconds then into iced water for a few seconds. Take out, peel, remove seeds and roughly chop flesh. Heat 25mls olive oil in pan, add finely diced onion and garlic and cook gently until soft. Add a tsp salt and chopped tomatoes and cook slowly until liquid released from tomatoes has evaporated and mixture becomes concentrated. Season to taste, add 25mls olive oil, a few chopped basil leaves and keep warm.

To make basil oil -
Plunge rest of basil into boiling water for 15 seconds, then into iced water for a few seconds. Squeeze dry. Blend with 150mls olive oil until oil is bright green, then sieve.

Blend 3 cheeses together until smooth and put mixture into a piping bag. Carefully unwrap tops of courgette flowers and remove inside stamen by gently snapping off. Pipe cheese mix into each flower and re-wrap top to seal mix inside.

Dip flowers in milk then flour and deep fry until crispy (about 1 minute). Season with salt, spoon some of warm tomato sauce in the middle of 4 serving plates, frame with basil oil and place flowers on top.

Simon recommends serving with Henri Bourgeois Sancerre 2001, Sancerre Region (a full flavoured fruity white wine)

©2004 Linda Donald
All rights reserved
Appeared in Food + Wine Lifestyle
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