Thanks for your hospitality

La Rumbla’s executive chef Jay Sherwood is also head brewer/owner of Lake and Wood

Adapted from Jo Elwin’s original story published in Viva magazine

Anyone wanting a decent coffee, drink or meal served well, will find it in Arrowtown and we can thank a handful of experienced owner operators for that – they know their stuff, they are locals, and they know their market.

When Penelope (PJ) Johnson and Sam Gruar were opening La Rumbla in 2012 their bank manager asked who their target market was and they said, ‘people who don’t go out in Arrowtown’. “She didn’t quite get that”, PJ laughs. “Everyone was getting taxis to Queenstown for a night out and we were like ‘why don’t people go out in their own town? That taxi money can be spent on cocktails’”.

Provisions’ Jane and Hal Shaw with Taika

There wasn’t much to go out to back then. Saffron, Pete Gawron and Melanie Hill’s restaurant that set the Arrowtown scene, was going strong, the Fork and Tap and New Orleans were wetting whistles and The Blue Door was entertaining night owls.

“The Blue Door was the first thing that was kind of cool in Arrowtown,” say Provisions’ Jane and Hal Shaw. “Pete and Melanie opened it across the lane from Saffron and both establishments were successful. “It showed that you could do something here.” Today’s owners (a group of shareholders that include Arrowtown residents Michael Hill and caterer to the stars Dave Arnold) have transformed Saffron into Aosta, a top-notch modern Italian, but The Blue Door is still The Blue Door. The locals would revolt if this charming wee bar were messed with.

Provisions has been leading Arrowtown’s café culture for over a decade. The jam and chutney business was originally in Old Cromwell Town but when Jane wanted to expand into a café, she couldn’t get a license because the town already had a café. Things weren’t so restrictive through the Gorge. And, when the Arrowtown Historical Trust were looking for tenants for their restored cottages (they were perilously close to being knocked down under previous ownership), Jane found her “happy place.”

Cromwell’s loss was Arrowtown’s gain. Jane is one of Central’s food pioneers, setting up the region’s first farmers market in Cromwell in 2003 to service locals and says she did the same with the café. “Arrowtown wasn’t created for tourists, many of us geared our businesses around the locals – and by locals we also mean holiday homeowners.”

That is why Arrowtown’s food and beverage businesses are doing well. Hal says, “Arrowtown has become a food and beverage precinct for adults and I think that has happened because Queenstown got very young - it’s the party town. At the same time Arrowtown started some lovely food and beverage offerings and the Millbrook and Dalefield divisions brought in more people who had no desire to go to Queenstown. Product stepped up because the demand was there, and the demand came because there was good product.”

“People are looking for something authentic,” says Jane. “The buildings are mostly original, and the town is building on what was already there. The community is already there looking after itself, so it’s very real, it’s not contrived. Not big high rises to get big rents. People have a strong sense of what’s good for the community.”

The community welcomed The Dishery in November 2020 and it fits perfectly. Scott Stevens is another local, owner-operator, hospitality veteran who knows the market. He’s created The Dishery for himself and his stage of life, as he did his first bar in Queenstown in his mid-twenties. A late-night party bar was where it was at for him, now it’s lunch over a glass of wine in a gorgeous spot where he can also take his young children. He points to the fenced lawn in front of the restaurant where they set a little table and umbrella for kids. It was through his kids’ Mainly Music group that he found executive chef, Ainsley Rose Thompson. Having left the Sherwood in Queenstown to be a mum, Ainsley Rose wasn’t actively looking to get back into cheffing but what Scott was offering was a dream job - the opportunity to be involved in creating not just the menu but the whole vibe of the restaurant. “Along with my wife Emily, Ainsley is another voice and set of eyes on the whole design of the place,” says Scott. “I felt that Arrowtown could do with a daytime bistro. If you want to go somewhere for a bistro-style lunch you need to head out of town to Akarua or Amisfield. La Rumbla and Aosta have evenings covered so 8am until 8pm is where we saw the gap that The Dishery could fill. We designed a breakfast, lunch and early supper menu based around what others were doing and what we could do to complement it. There are not two hospitality businesses in Arrowtown that are the same, they’ve all got something different to offer and there are enough foodies in this little corner of the Whakatipu that will keep coming if the offering is new and varied.

A selection of meals at The Dishery. Photography by Isabella Rubie

PJ and Sam are certainly doing their bit. La Rumbla, their flagship restaurant with a really good bar that pumps late into the evening, was community-focused from day one and it took off. “Everyone was curious and fascinated,” says PJ. “A few dubious Southerners had to get their heads around sharing plates in 2012, but it was cool, we put on some ceviche and introduced them to chilli and away we went. We weren’t targeting tourists and we didn’t build a space so big that we couldn’t fill it with locals.” Things haven’t changed much, they still serve dishes with a Latin American/Spanish twist that you would like to eat at home but don’t want to cook, and a wine list that changes every day.

Local support led to the creation of Slow Cuts in 2015, giving residents a decent takeaway option. “We wanted to pick up on the burger trend and rotisserie chickens seemed to be on the up. There was a market here, and a lot of people work from Arrowtown, so we wanted to give them a good, healthy lunch that’s not restaurant based. I also wanted to do a takeaway shop where you could get a glass of champagne,” PJ shrugs as if to say, ‘why wouldn’t you?’

The La Rumbla dining room has a popular bar that pumps late into the evening. Photography by Andy Brown

Slow Cuts followed the same trajectory as La Rumbla and the space became too small. In 2018 they moved it to a bigger site where it has gone from 80 per cent takeaway to 25 per cent takeaway and 75 per cent dine in. They put Good Day into the vacated space to fill the breakfast gap. This collab with Alex and Devan from Wolf Coffee, also went down a treat and has recently transitioned into Goldie Cafe as Alex and Devan have taken full ownership.

Ainsley Rose Thompson. Photography by Isabella Rubie

Ainsley Rose Thompson, executive chef, The Dishery

It’s exciting to have Ainsley Rose back on the scene. The Wellingtonian who has Matterhorn, The French Café and Floriditas on her CV, won our hearts and tummies at Queenstown’s Sherwood and is doing so again at The Dishery.

The Dishery menu sees Ainsley Rose hero-ing the ingredients, not the ethnicity of the dish which enables her to mix things up. The Southern Fried Cheese Roll is part breakfast burrito with a tortilla wrap, scrambled egg and bechamel sauce that has the requisite onion soup mix flavour. There’s a Southern influence, “I love the energy of the South Island – strong, but beautiful,” she says. It’s bistro-style because that’s the food that she likes to eat - unfussy, honest and relaxed. You can arrive at 8am and order anything on the menu - a sharing platter of Stewart Island smoked salmon if that’s what you want. Chorizo hash is a popular dish that Ainsley Rose created for owner Scott Stevens. The bloody Mary salad is for a friend and the burgers are for her partner. The slow-cooked brisket is for the tradies who lucked out onsite during food sampling. “That’s how I do a menu,” she says. “I think ‘what would Mum have? What would Dad have?’ Scott says the crayfish pancake brings his fancier friends to mind – a light bite with a glass of Central Otago wine.

As mum to two boys under five, Ainsley Rose intends to stay out of the kitchen as much as possible and has experienced head and sous chefs to enable this, saying “I’ll do my admin from home and pop in and make sure everything’s alright. She also states that she’s a hands-on person – a hands-on mum and a hands-on chef. Good luck with that one Ainsley Rose.

Provisions of Arrowtown

Jane Shaw’s love of baking had her making sticky buns 17 years ago and she still has people coming into Provisions looking for them. “It’s something I could never take off the menu,” she says, “but there have been plenty of changes.” Provisions historic cottage and garden setting belies the contemporary menu of seasonal and plant-based dishes. “We have many health-conscious regulars who appreciate the fresh, light meals we make using local ingredients.”

Alexander Tong on the tools at Good Day before its transformation into Goldie Cafe

Wolf Coffee

Wolf Coffee’s Alexander Tong and Devan Tyler say they feel “blessed to be in Arrowtown where the community and the cafes look after each other. If someone runs out of oat milk, we share.” Alexander says that coffee can be quite competitive in bigger cities, such as Auckland where he trained as a barista and coffee roaster and worked hard to save for the 1950s German-built coffee roaster that now, after refurbishment, roasts Wolf Coffee beans. The couple named their company Wolf because of the way wolf packs move around and support each other and that’s how they approach relationships with their wholesale and retail customers. They hope that soon they can apply this philosophy to the coffee farmers, cutting out the middlemen and being able to work closely with farmers to help support them and their communities. Alexander would also like to share more of what he knows with coffee drinkers, educating people on the origins of coffee beans and the different flavour nuances by holding tastings, as we do with wine. There is also hope for a new roasting site where he doesn’t freeze in winter and overheat in summer and the pride-and-joy roaster can be on display.

Wolf coffee can be enjoyed and purchased at their Goldie Café in Arrowtown or buy online at wolfcoffee.co.nz

Sam Gruar and PJ Johnson in the La Rumbla dining room. Photography by Andy Brown

Penelope (PJ) Johnson and Sam Gruar

PJ and Sam have impressive credentials. The La Rumbla and Slow Cuts owners met at the Blue Door in 2006. Sam’s an Auckland boy, who did his apprenticeship under Jimmy Gerard at Harbourside and PJ’s from a hospitality family in Waimate. They spent time in Auckland working at The French Café, The Engine Room, Ponsonby Road Bistro and Botswana Butchery and working for a hospitality company in Ibiza before returning to Arrowtown to start their own thing. They’re a hard-working couple who have built a loyal team. PJ says, “We do about 20 hours in service a week, filling in where needed. I can be running food one night and Sam can be on prep or dinner service.  We love it, it’s been a fun nine years and I feel like we’re only getting started.”

They encourage the development of their 38 staff, and when executive chef Jay Sherwood (ex Amisfield) and his partner Anna Kerslake started Lake and Wood Brewery, PJ and Sam were ardent supporters. They become minor shareholders and made a home for Lake and Wood in their restaurants, building a brewery at the back of Slow Cuts two years ago. “It’s small, we’re not even a micro-brewery, we’re nano! As well as La Rambla and Slow Cuts, The Fork and Tap, Jack’s, Amisfield and The Dishery have it on tap and that’s all we can brew. We’d like to get it around the country, but we’ll need another brew site for that!” PJ Laughs.

Scott Stevens in The Dishery garden at Dudley’s Cottage Precinct. Photography by Isabella Rubie

Dudley’s Cottage Precinct

Scott Stevens has carefully developed the historic Dudley’s Cottage, where he ran a café for ten years, into a small precinct of retail and office space. The cottage, which is Category 2 listed, needed to stand out, so the new building that houses The Dishery has been set back and cut into the rock behind it. The new buildings are designed to look like back sheds and the corrugated iron has been dulled down to ensure the cottage is out in the limelight and that nothing overshadows the Chinese Settlement and the Category 1 Ah Lum’s store next door.