Bar Mason
Hankering for a delicious Mediterranean meal in a low-key kind of setting, with a cheeky little cocktail to round things off? Then check out Bar Mason, a super-tasty addition to Wellington’s suburban dining scene, says Sharon Stephenson
Mid-morning, mid-week and under a sky the colour of dirty wool, Wellington chef Matt Hawkes is worrying about mint. Specifically, where the fragrant bunches he needs for his broad bean falafel have got to. In between locating the AWOL herbs and baking hundreds of flatbreads, the chef/founder of Bar Mason tells me about opening his eclectic eatery and bar in suburban Newtown.
“It sounds a bit cliched but I’ve always wanted to own my own restaurant,” says Matt. “To cook the kind of food I like to eat, serve the wine I like to drink and make the cocktails I enjoy. To have a kind of low-brow, fun and rowdy place where people sit at the bar and eat. I’ve travelled a lot on my own and prefer sitting at bars, eating and chatting to people.”
Matt has connected those dots with Bar Mason, where the food is as laid-back as its creator, but with a distinctive Mediterranean and Middle Eastern accent.
“The flatbread style of eating is what
I love, so our constantly changing smallplate menu includes offerings such as Warm Spiced Popcorn Cauliflower with Tahini Tarator and Date Molasses; or Twice-cooked Pork Belly, Persimmon and Picada.”
A spin around the dessert menu includes Rhubarb and Rose Water Semifreddo – a dish Matt calls interesting, but that I’d call delicious. Seasonality and organic products are key, something Matt learned from celebrated chef Kelda Hains – first at Nikau then at Rita, the iconic Te Aro eatery he set up with Kelda and Paul Schrader in 2017.
“Kelda has been the biggest influence on my cooking and flavour profiles. I loved being a part of Rita and some people thought I was crazy to leave, but I wasn’t being challenged and had long wanted to do my own thing.”
He stumbled on this site – a former record shop that started life as a stable – and spent five months pulling it apart and putting it back together himself. He opened Bar Mason two weeks before lockdown.
“I was exhausted from working at Rita and spending every spare minute renovating this place so lockdown was a bit of a blessing. I took my surfboard up north and had a well-earned rest.”
Whangarei-born Matt took a circuitous route to food, leaving school at 15 and cycling through a range of mainly dishwashing and construction jobs.
Those construction jobs took him firstly to London and then to Canada, where he spent months in minus 30°C roofing buildings. There followed a year’s stint in Texas and work at a wood-fire grill, where Matt learned everything he could about butchery and fermenting. Back in New Zealand, he juggled a Spanish and sociology degree with working at Nikau, the iconic cafe in Wellington’s City Gallery, where he met Kelda and Paul.
Now he’s found his happy place at Bar Mason, feeding and watering Wellingtonians and serving creative concoctions such as Pickleback Whisky Shots, which chase a rye whisky with brine from the chillies Matt pickles.
“They’re so popular we’ve had to order more shot glasses!” barmason.co.nz