Tell us a bit about yourself, who are you and what’s your role here at The Wine Room?

Hey, I'm Ryan and I'm the executive chef and co-owner here at the wine room.


How did you get into hospitality?

So I was playing a lot of sport at a very young age. I got injured so kind of found my feet in cooking. Both my mum and my grandma were really good cooks. I just kind of learned a bit off them and then actually got an amazing job at a Michelin star restaurant back in the UK. Which was a one star and then just kind of worked my way up and ended up working at a place called L’Enclume which has got three stars now and then just before I came to New Zealand me and a friend who'd worked together went to his parents farm opened this restaurant together it was 30 covers and then we won a Michelin star within seven months of being open which is pretty cool. Yeah!


What’s the part of your job you love the most?

Probably what I love the most is I guess seeing guest reactions when they're eating the food. Just making people happy with food. That kind of brings us, yeah, brings us very good joy.


What does a typical day like for you?

A typical day, so yeah normally the chefs start around 9.30, 10ish. We make so much stuff here we don't really buy anything in. So it's kind of... Full go, soon as we come in, full noise. Yeah, we could have a lunch function for 20 people in the PDR room, or we could just get them ready for a working lunch menu and then, yeah, in the evening, it's always something different as well. So we have quite an extensive restaurant menu now, which is kind of grown as we got older here in the wine room. Which is great. Yeah.