When they return from their OE, many young chefs are bursting with new recipes, techniques and ideas for flavours. When Helen Turnbull of Kāpiti’s 50-50 restaurant went to Japan as a 20-year-old, she came back with a whole lot more. There she learned what would become the pillars of her business today: the art of communication and the art of hospitality. She says, “Everybody said to me, ‘There’s no way you could be a chef in Japan: you’re 20 years old, and a girl, and you don’t speak Japanese’. And so I thought, ‘Well, there’s a challenge’. My sensei there who took me under his wing was just an incredible communicator. Japanese people are famous for being extremely hospitable, they really care for people and all the little hospitality tips become a natural, unconscious way of behaving.” On leaving Tokyo after five years (including a stint at Michelin-starred Gordon Ramsay at Conrad Tokyo and Cuisine[s] Michel Troisgros), she went on to travel across Asia and Europe to expand her food journey, before returning home to work as head chef at The Hills and Rātā in Queenstown and Hummingbird in Wellington. Such experiences were invaluable on opening 50-50 in 2017, but it’s the essence of her teacher, Toshihisa Tsukada of Kuon restaurant, that has been most influential. “Communication is something that I have consciously worked on and wanted to be good at from meeting my sensei in Japan, and experiencing the way and amount of effort and love he put into being able to communicate with me. I have so much passion for teaching everybody that I employ, and working out the way to communicate to the individual so that they really understand what you want to say is so important.”

Read a job advert for a chef or front-of-house staff and most lead with what skills the applicant needs to offer to the restaurant. But at 50-50 the emphasis shifts: there they say, ‘We’d love to teach you what we do’ and ‘We can help you become the best’. “I come to work every day to have a challenge and get better and, first and foremost, to teach and inspire, and lead and encourage my team and my staff to get better.” Taking this beyond the walls of 50-50, Helen has taken steps into consulting – writing menus and training chefs for other restaurants – which she sees as a great way to spread her love of hospitality and food.

So, what about the art of Kiwi hospitality? “What makes New Zealand special is definitely the way that we like our hospitality to be. We really like the experience of having something different and having dinner be an event, spending time with our loved ones and really connecting the food or the people, but we don’t want pomp and ceremony.”

Just look at 50-50 to see what Helen means: here is a restaurant with an open kitchen because Helen wants to be part of the dining experience and build connections, not be shut away from her guests; here is a restaurant proudly based in Kāpiti rather than in the city, because being a part of customers’ lives and sharing experiences through food and regular connection is vital to Helen. It’s the beginning of a lively discussion about what people have eaten, where and with whom and that, in turn, feeds into the next menu. “Because the menu is always changing so is the conversation, it’s just always about sharing food experiences. It’s really stimulating and I enjoy the opportunity to be able to connect and get to know people and have them there asking me questions and chatting about food because all I really like to do is chat about food.” TRACY WHITMEY