What's your secret to success?
Surrounding myself with people who excel at what they do.
It's not just food you excel at ... it's business as well. Where does your heart lie?
They are both pretty intermingled. I will always love the creative outlet that cooking offers, however these days I get a real kick out of working with talented people and having a crack at the variety of interesting projects that present themselves.
Who or what is the inspiration behind Al Brown?
I guess it's a bit cliched, but I'm just super proud to be a New Zealander and have the opportunity to showcase the country through food and hospitality.
Your latest book is no run-of-the-mill cookbook. Tell us a little about it.
Cookbooks for me have to be much more than just recipes. Just as important in my eyes is they need to be an interesting read. Depot: The Biography of a Restaurant has nearly every recipe that has graced the tables at Depot since we opened the doors over three years ago. However, I have also written 40,000 words up front, about how we created this successful little high-octane eatery. I write about what the vision of the restaurant is and the people who helped create and realise that vision. It's quite an in-depth and transparent look into the day-to-day details of what it takes to be successful in our extremely complex and highly competitive hospitality industry.
Do you still get time to cook?
Not nearly as much as I would like.
What is your favourite recipe?
Currently, it's a salad my wife Lizzie made a week or so ago. It was made with cold roasted cauliflower and parsnip, an assortment of fresh herbs, almonds and the like, with Zany Zeus feta cheese folded through it ... Delicious it was!
Have you a favourite little spot in new zealand?
There is a place where I have been fortunate enough to have had permission to camp. It's in Ahipara up in the "Far North". For all the hard-core surfers out there (not me) they will know what I mean when I say it's just around the corner from "Shippies"!
You grew up on a farm and it was presumed, as the only son, you would one day take it over. What happened?
I loved the land, but farming just wasn't my thing.
In 2012 you were made a member of the new zealand order of merit ... should we look forward to calling you Sir Al in the future?
No way. I have never been big on titles of any sort. I like calling people by their first names.
What would be your ideal retirement?
To live next to water somewhere in New Zealand, be it the ocean, a lake or a river for that matter, it just feels good for the soul. To partake in any form or variety of fishing at least twice a week would also be a serious retirement goal!
As a first-time visitor to Depot, what would you recommend from your menu?
Freshly shucked oysters and clams, kingfish sashimi, the "craydog", hapuka belly, skirt steak, pork hock, and sugar pie.
How does Depot's (small) size play a large part in the restaurant's role?
As it's so small, it's bursting at the seams most evenings so it always feels like a rocking dinner party!
Tell us five things that set Depot apart from other restaurants.
• With no reservations, you'll always get a table at Depot ... patience is often the key!
• We serve fine wine directly from the tap.
• Everyone gets a "koha" from the kitchen when you dine at lunch or dinner.
• We are open seven days a week from 7am till late.
• Free Griffins Gingernuts with your coffee in the morning and throughout the day ... help yourself!
What do you want diners to experience at Depot?
Delicious New Zealand produce served in a generous style, by happy, "on to it" waiters. At a place where elbows on the table and raucous laughter are normal behaviour and encouraged.
Where do you see Depot in 2020?
No86 Federal St, Auckland [where the restaurant is currently located] .
Tell us three surprising things about yourself.
I don't like raw celery, I love well-made filter coffee, I'm ashamed I can't speak Maori.
Extract: Depot - Biography of A Restaurant
The One Hundy Gram Whitebait Fritter
Serves 6
A Kiwi delicacy. We wanted to offer the kind of fritter your nana would make - handfuls of whitebait barely held together by batter. Whitebait have a very delicate flavour, you don't need to overcomplicate it: white trash bread, mayo and a generous squeeze of lemon is all you need.
Ingredients
Step 1.
Egg Batter
8 whole eggs (medium)
3/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted
Step 2. Tarragon Salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup picked tarragon leaves
1/4 cup flaky sea salt
Step 3.
To Cook and Serve
600g whitebait, rinsed and drained
Egg batter
Flaky sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Canola oil for cooking
100g salted butter, cubed
12 slider buns (or similar)
2 handfuls watercress, washed and picked
1 cup mayonnaise (see recipe below)
Tarragon salt
Juice of 2 lemons
Method
Step 1. Egg batter
Whisk the eggs and sifted flour together in a mixing bowl until the batter is smooth. Rest the batter, or refrigerate until required.
Step 2. Tarragon salt
Place your canola oil and tarragon leaves in a saucepan on medium heat. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until all the moisture has been removed from the leaves and they no longer bubble. Remove with a sieve and drain on paper towels.
Put the fried tarragon and half your salt into a mortar and pestle, then grind into a green paste. Transfer the green paste and the remaining salt to a jar, seal with a lid, and shake to combine. Store in the jar until required.
Step 3. To cook and serve
Preheat the oven to 150C.
Mix 100g of the whitebait with a third of a cup of batter. Season with salt and pepper.
Heat a 15cm skillet with a little canola oil on medium heat. Add 2 cubes of butter, and swirl around until foaming. Pour in the fritter mixture and turn the heat up to high. Cook for 2-3 minutes until golden around the edge, then flip the fritter and cook for a further 2 minutes.
Hold the fritters in the oven while you repeat the process, or just make one large fritter in a bigger skillet using all the mixture.
Split the slider buns, brush the tops with butter and toast in the oven until crisp and hot through.
Serve up your 100g whitebait fritters on the toasted sliders with fresh watercress, a dollop of thick mayo, a sprinkling of tarragon salt and a hit of lemon juice.
Al's Mayonnaise, makes 5 cups
This mayo recipe has been kicking around with me forever. I think a version of it has been in every cookbook I have published, and for good reason. It works and it's delicious! - AB
9 egg yolks
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 & 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 & 1/2 tbsp sugar
100ml olive oil
1.4 litres canola oil
Flaky sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Place the egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard and sugar in a food processor, then blitz to combine. While blitzing, pour in the oils in a continuous stream, until fully incorporated. Your mayo will become thick and glossy. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and refrigerate until required. Keeps for 2 weeks.
Skirt Steak
- with Habanero Mustard, Tobacco Onions and Iceberg Wedge. Serves 6
So unappreciated is the skirt, that for many years it was destined for the meat grinder - sacrilege, I say. When cooked over searing coals, no more than a fraction over rare, you will see why this steak has earned such high regard among chefs for its flavour and tenderness. This cut is from the pectoral area of the steer. Ask your butcher for thick skirt steak or hangar steak and ignore his reluctance, for he may be intending to save it for himself. - KS
Hands down my favourite dish on the menu, it is served at Depot with the habanero mustard on the side.
The combination of this humble cut of beef, cooked over screaming hot charcoal, served with the hot mustard, the cold iceberg with ranch dressing and the crisp sweet tobacco onions is simply mind-blowing. I just can't go past it when eating at the shop. - AB
Ingredients
Step 1.
Habanero Mustard
1/4 cup roughly chopped shallots
1 tsp roughly chopped garlic
1/4 cup coriander stem or root, finely chopped
3 habanero chillies, seeds removed, roughly chopped
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
Pinch salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 cups American "ball park" mustard
Step 2.
Ranch Dressing, see recipe on page 307
Step 3.
Tobacco Onions
canola oil for deep-frying
1 cup self-raising flour
1 tsp Spanish smoked sweet paprika
1 tsp table salt
1 tsp cracked black pepper
4 cups halved and thinly sliced onion
Step 4.
To Cook and Serve
1kg skirt steak
Canola oil for brushing
Flaky sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Tobacco onions
1/2 iceberg lettuce, cut into wedges
Ranch dressing
Habanero mustard
Method
Step 1. Habanero mustard
In a saucepan, place all the ingredients except the American mustard. Bring up to the boil, then simmer for 30 minutes until the liquid is mostly reduced. Remove from the heat, cool slightly, then puree with a wand blender to make a paste.
Fold through the American mustard, then refrigerate until required.
Step 2. Tobacco onions
Preheat the oven to 100C.
Heat a deep-fryer to 180C. Or heat a medium-sized saucepan half-filled with oil. The oil is ready when a cube of day-old bread turns golden when fried for about 1 minute.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, paprika, salt and black pepper. Toss the onion slices in the flour mix, then dust off any excess.
Deep-fry the onions in batches for 3-4 minutes, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and hold in the warm oven.
Step 3. To cook and serve
Preheat grill pan or barbecue to smoking hot.
Tenderise the skirt steaks by scoring both sides with a sharp knife.
Oil your steaks and season well with salt and pepper. Cook for 2 minutes on each side, then remove from the heat to rest for a couple of minutes.
Slice the skirt steaks across the grain.
Divide up the sliced steak between six plates. Top off the plates with the tobacco onions, an iceberg wedge with a generous amount of ranch dressing, and finish with a schmear of habanero mustard on the side.
