Words Denise Irvine Images Ashlee DeCaires
I’m driving past Hamilton Hotel at 11.15 on a Sunday morning and Jonathan Knapp is carrying stacks of chairs outside to the pavement in the city’s south-end, setting up tables for the day ahead. Nothing to see here, you might think … only this is the boss doing the heavy lifting, no job too big or too small for him.
Jonathan (mostly known as Jono) is the general manager and a co-owner of the landmark Hamilton Hotel at the heart of the hospitality offerings in the BNZ Theatre precinct. There are a lot of moving parts to this business, including the outside tables: turn right at the front door and you’re in the bistro, the hotel’s main dining room with polished wooden fittings and velvet-covered banquettes; turn left for the public bar, for drinks and casual food; and head upstairs for elegant special event spaces in The Gallery and Left Bank Lounge (think banquets, balls, weddings and other celebrations). Plus there is the more intimate Room 65 for private functions, which takes its name from the year the original Hamilton Hotel opened on this site, in 1865.
Show nights at the theatre are huge, with both the bistro and bar packed from 5pm until the curtain rises, and there is service upstairs in the special event spaces as well. Jono and his crew are watering and feeding hundreds of people, but he says they’re well set up for it with a vast kitchen, five or six chefs at peak times, extra bartenders and waiting staff, and a freight elevator to ferry food to the next level.
“We have created an amazing stage for people to have a great time,” he says over coffee in the public bar with business partner Mat Pedley. It is nearly a year on from their opening day last November and they’re reflecting on how they handle this big set-up.
Everything happened hard and fast from the beginning. The head chef they’d engaged pulled out just before the start date so there was some quick reworking in the kitchen, and English chef Louis Crampton (who has since moved back overseas) stepped in for them. “We’d hired really well, though,” says Jono. “It was a green team but a good one. Everyone wanted to create something fun and exciting in the city.”
Some might say it was a bold move to take on a hospitality project of such complexity, but there is plenty of experience to draw on: Hamilton Hotel sits under the umbrella of Overproof, run by Mat Pedley, John Moughan and Alex Hudson, who are the trio behind city venues Mr Pickles, Last Place Bar, Everyday Eatery (at Hamilton Zoo), and Reggie’s and Neat at Made in Hamilton East, as well as Wonder Horse Bar, Four Daughters and Birdman Bar in the theatre precinct.
Mat says BNZ Theatre venue manager Michael Gilling and other staff are excellent to deal with, and he is pleased to watch the theatre grow in his hometown. “The expectation is huge, they’re bringing shows we never expected to see in Hamilton. We want to be part of the ride.”
Mat and Jono are especially mindful (and proud) of Hamilton Hotel’s heritage and various incarnations, how it was shuttered for a long time and rebuilt for a fresh purpose. It attracts a lot of attention, and as we speak an older man and his grandkids drift into the foyer to admire the grand timber staircase, and a gallery of historic photographs, the stand-out being one of young Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip waving from the hotel balcony on December 30, 1953.
Everyone, it seems, has a Hamilton Hotel story, including Jono and Mat: Jono’s father was a bartender for a while at The Keg, which was once part of the building, and Mat worked briefly at Billy’s Karaoke and Gaming Bar, ditto on this site.
Jono got into hospitality almost by accident when he returned to Hamilton in 2013, after a stint with Apple Inc. in New York. He was looking for work and was employed by Mat who was launching Mexico restaurant on Victoria Street for Auckland owner Mimi Gilmour.
Mat did a 30-second interview with Jono, who’d had no previous hospitality experience. “You can tell pretty quickly. And massive kudos to Jono now. He’s doing a phenomenal job at Hamilton Hotel.”
Jono says from the get-go at Mexico he found a world where he thrived. “I was drawn to the traditions and lore of restaurants, the history of it. It’s a niche industry that only a specific type of person is cut out for. It is an industry that teaches you how to be empathetic and to work hard, and communicate with people. And the camaraderie is fantastic.”
He’s conscious of the calibre of staff needed to run an operation like Hamilton Hotel, and key appointments since opening day include bar manager David Nixon; head chef Don Zhang, who oversees the kitchen; sous chef Sushant Katkar; and restaurant manager Emily Chambers.
Chef Don Zhang is a long-time Hamiltonian who most recently worked in Dublin. Nowadays he and his team create the hotel’s robust bistro menu classics, described by Mat as “European comfort food meets New York steakhouse”: the charred beef rump (from the charcoal oven) with shoestring fries and peppercorn crème is a crowd favourite, along with pan-fried market fish and butternut risotto. Charred black tiger prawns with garlic chilli lime butter get a shout-out from Jono, as does the braised cabbage.
In the public bar, there is a selection of more casual plates, and on Sundays they do a roast lunch in the bar, $35 a head for lamb, pork, beef or confit duck, with roast vegetables. There will likely be some sport on the big television screens; the bar also hosts DJs on Friday nights, there is live music on Saturday nights, and parts of this space can be screened off for smaller private functions.
Says Jono: “On a Friday night on the floor, with the bistro and bar humming and everything clicking with staff and customers, there’s nothing like it.”
On the Sunday morning task of lugging the chairs and tables outside, he says, “Never ask anyone to do something that you’re not willing to do yourself.”
Hamilton Hotel
170 Victoria Street, Hamilton