Ozone coffee shop top in London
A Taranaki business and its Taranaki chef are thriving in London and winning awards while they’re at it.
Ozone Coffee Roaster London head chef Joe O’Connell was on hand recently to collect the Top Coffee House award at the hospitality industry’s 27th annual Hardens London Restaurant Awards.
O’Connell joined Ozone in mid - 2014, and played an integral part of the success behind the menu offering at the Antipodean roastery based in Shoreditch in London’s East End, Ozone codirector Craig Macfarlane said.
The former Waitara High School student, and WelTec City and Guilds graduate, worked at a range of restaurants in Taranaki and Wellington, including Waiau Estate, Boulcott St Bistro, and Arbitrageur before leaving New Zealand.
He joined Ozone in London as head chef after a stint in Vaujany, France.
Ozone Coffee Roasters was highly driven as an innovator in the specialty hospitality scene, Macfarlane said.
The company has been in London since 2012.
The ‘all day every day’ menu, which focused on sustainable cooking to maximise healthiness without sacrificing flavour, had proved successful with Londoner’s palates, he said.
Ozone, described by Hardens as a ‘‘Shoreditch hipster favourite,’’ was ‘‘unbeatable’’ among the award finalists in the Top Coffee House category.
The northern hemisphere outpost had proved popular with London coffee drinkers who queue up in the morning for their daily caffeine hit attracted by the ’’habit-forming smell from the big roasting machines in the basement,’’ the awards citation said.
Hardens London Restaurant Awards received nominees for the awards from the public and the
2017 awards were chosen from
50,000 reviews contributed by 8500 diners.