Rebecca Smidt of Cazador & San Ray on the true cost of greatness in hospitality

Melissa Lind of Charley Noble on walking the line between control and chaos in a busy service

Melissa Lind didn’t plan to become the General Manager of one of Wellington’s busiest restaurants. She walked into Charley Noble [https://www.charleynoble.co.nz/]with a single CV, no appointment, and asked for a job. Three months later, she was running the floor. Eight years on, Mel oversees Charley Noble and The Food Lab as GM of Knife Block Hospitality, leading huge services, managing teams of up to 75 staff, and navigating the beautiful chaos of modern hospitality. This episode is packed with the kinds of stories you genuinely couldn’t make up: clarified butter taking out the power during a packed dinner service, celebrity walk-ins, brutal restaurant reviews, impossible customers, and the line that won an entire dining room after one guest pushed too far. In this candid and often hilarious conversation, Mel talks with Dom about what really goes into running a high-volume restaurant in Wellington, New Zealand. They get into restaurant culture, hospitality leadership, hiring for values over experience, post-COVID staffing shortages, and why the old-school “screaming chef” era had to die. Mel also reflects on the five-day stage she did at legendary Vancouver restaurant Chambar, an experience that completely reshaped the way she thinks about systems, service, and team culture in hospitality. The episode also dives into the emotional side of the restaurant industry: how reviews affect operators, the pressure of maintaining standards at scale, and why great hospitality is ultimately about reading people.  If you’re interested in restaurants, hospitality, food culture, leadership, Wellington dining, or what actually happens behind the scenes of a busy service, this is one of the most honest conversations we’ve had on Kitchen Day so far. The Kitchen Day Podcast is proudly supported by Droppah [https://www.droppah.com/]. These guys make rostering for hospo feel like a walk in the park.  A big thank you also to the team at Coffee Supreme [https://coffeesupreme.com/] and the folks Craggy Range for bringing these episodes to life.

Natalia Schamroth of The Engine Room on 20 years of restaurant excellence

Natalia Schamroth never planned to open a restaurant on the North Shore. She and partner Carl Koppenhagen had a list, they'd searched for a year, and the day they went to see the old post office in Northcote Point they'd already talked themselves out of it. But then they saw the steel-framed windows, and the rest is history. Twenty years later, The Engine Room [https://engineroom.net.nz/] is the restaurant everyone in this city has a story about, and this week Natalia tells us hers. It's a conversation about what it actually takes to build something that endures. We talk about hiring for warmth and teaching everything else. Borrowing against the house, then borrowing against it again. And surviving the last five years when, as Natalia puts it, the business basically ran as a charity. And through all of it, never once compromising on the things that matters most. If you've ever wondered what real, genuine hospitality looks like from the inside, this is the episode. The Kitchen Day Podcast is proudly supported by Droppah [www.droppah.com]. These guys make rostering for hospo feel like a walk in the park.  A big thank you also to the team at Coffee Supreme [www.coffeesupreme.com⁠]( and the folks at Craggy Range [www.craggyrange.com⁠] for bringing these episodes to life.

Stephen Wong MW on passing the hardest wine exam in the world

There are roughly 420 Masters of Wine [https://www.mastersofwine.org/] in the world, and Wellington has one of them. This week on The Kitchen Day Podcast, I sit down with Stephen Wong MW [https://www.mastersofwine.org/stephen-wong-mw], a Master of Wine, wine educator, consultant, and judge. If you’ve ever wondered what it actually takes to become a Master of Wine, this conversation breaks it down, from the famously difficult MW exam to the years of blind tasting, study, and repetition behind it (spoiler: it’s absurdly hard). Stephen’s path into wine and hospitality started in New Zealand hospo almost by accident and evolved into an international career in wine education, wine judging, and restaurant wine list consultancy. We talk about the realities of working in hospitality, how professional wine tasting actually works, what wine judges look for in global wine competitions, and how New Zealand wine culture and wine service have changed over the past two decades. We also get into blind wine tasting technique, building a palate, the difference between tasting like a sommelier vs tasting like a “detective”, and what makes a great wine list in restaurants. Inspired by the Three Fates episode [https://notseriouswinechats.nz/journal/the-not-serious-gordon-russell-amp-holly-girvan-russell] on the Not Serious Wine Chats [https://notseriouswinechats.nz/] podcast, we finish with a live tasting of Domaine Vincent Dauvissat Chablis 2019, putting Master of Wine-level sensory analysis into practice in real time. Pour yourself a glass of something tasty and join us for this deep dive into wine education, hospitality, and the Master of Wine journey. The Kitchen Day podcast is proudly supported by Droppah [www.droppah.com⁠] - the go-to rostering software for hospitality. A huge thank you to the team at Coffee Supreme [www.coffeesupreme.com] and Craggy Range [www.craggyrange.com] for their continued support of our show. If you enjoyed this chat, leave us a comment below, and don’t forget to subscribe!

Ismo Koski of Apéro - the restaurant every restaurateur adores

Ismo Koski - or Mo, as he’s known in hospo circles -  is one of Aotearoa’s most respected front-of-house operators. He came up through the city's most influential fine-dining rooms, including The Grove, Sidart, and the French Café [https://www.thefrenchcafe.co.nz/] under Simon Wright and Creghan Molloy-Wright, before opening the iconic Apéro on K'Road with his partner, chef Leslie Hottiaux. Twelve years on, Apéro is the restaurant every restaurateur wishes was theirs. A brick-walled wine bar behind a small door on Karangahape Road, built on 90k and a vision board scrawled in Mo's dad's garage. Mo and Les have realised a long-held dream together, and they've done it entirely on their own terms. In this conversation, Mo shares how Apéro came to be, what he learned in fine dining that still shapes how he runs a casual room, and the decision that changed everything for his family. We talk about hiring, service, online reviews, Michelin, and what it actually feels like to own a beloved restaurant after more than a decade. Kitchen Day is proudly supported by Droppah [https://droppah.com/nz], our season sponsor. Thanks also to Coffee Supreme [https://coffeesupreme.com/] and Craggy Range [https://craggyrange.com/] for their ongoing support of the show and the wider hospitality industry. This episode was filmed at San Ray [https://sanray.nz/⁠]on Ponsonby Road, Auckland, and our Auckland recording trip was supported by the team at Hotel Indigo. [https://auckland.hotelindigo.com/]

Hannah Wells of Puffin on building Wellington’s most beloved hidden wine bar

I’m delighted to bring you this conversation with none other than Hannah Wells [https://www.instagram.com/hannah_e_wells/], the charming owner of Wellington’s [https://www.wellingtonnz.com/] beloved hidden wine bar Puffin [https://www.puffinwinebar.com/]. With a background in design, Hannah came into hospitality with a strong sense of feel and intention, and opened Puffin at exactly the right moment, backing herself to create something small, considered, and entirely her own. This is a conversation about trusting your taste and building from there. We talk about making the leap into ownership, creating a space that people genuinely want to be in, and putting together a team that reflects that energy. There’s plenty in here on biodynamic wine too, what draws Hannah to it, what she hopes for the future of the industry in New Zealand, and why more people should be open to a slightly wild glass of what she calls purple jet plane wine! A huge thanks to the rostering gods at Droppah [www.droppah.com] for backing Season 2 of The Kitchen Day Podcast. We also couldn’t do this without the support of the team at Coffee Supreme [www.coffeesupreme.com] and Craggy Range [https://craggyrange.com/]. These guys love hospo as much as we do.  If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe wherever you listen and send it to someone who’d get something out of it. It makes a bigger difference than you think ✌️