Annette and Michael Dearth, owners of Auckland fine dining restaurant The Grove. Photo / Babiche Martens
One of New Zealand’s most renowned restaurants, the world-class The Grove, will close in March. Its owners are determined to go out on a high, toasting more than 20 years of award-winning, fine-dining dishes, high-profile chefs and loyal customers, including many celebrities. Shayne Currie reports.
“I pretty much cried on the way to this interview in the car,” says Annette Dearth, as she sits alongside her husband Michael at table 11 on a weekday morning at The Grove in central Auckland.
The tables, draped in pressed, crisp-white tablecloths, will tonight host pre-Christmas diners – families, couples, colleagues, friends.
The chefs will be in soon to prepare but for now, the Dearths are sitting together, alone in the restaurant, reflecting on their 20-year fine-dining dream which will soon – and by their own choice – come to a close.
Annette describes The Grove as their “first-born”. The dream they built after moving halfway across the world, to New Zealand from America, in 2003. They opened The Grove the following year, a labour of love that has become famous for its degustation menus and exacting standards.
And while there have been some tears in recent days – “it’s pretty emotional,” says Annette, who recalls being pregnant with her two children (now teenagers) while walking the restaurant floors – the pair are also emphatic this is a celebration. The sky is not falling, they say.
The Dearths – who also own waterfront restaurant Baduzzi, which continues as normal – are closing The Grove on their terms. They are also giving themselves headspace to think about their next move – inevitable new dreams. “We’ll let the creativity flow again,” says Annette.
Michael: “There’s a lot of reasons why we’ve made this decision. It’s definitely been floating around because it’s been such a fight – from the pandemic, to so much uncertainty [with the] global financial crisis and extreme weather events where suddenly vegetables cost more than protein.”
Even so, the last two years have been “amazing”, says Dearth, a former US college American football player who likens the decision to a sports star going out on a high.
“We feel strong,” he says. “We’re actually really busy and I know we’re going to break a few hearts. We’re going to disappoint some of our great customers that we’ve also become friends with over the years.”
The Grove has been and remains a passion project – “We love food, we love wine, we love people”, says Michael – but rising costs do have an impact across the ecosystem.
“To produce what our expectations are for this restaurant and to keep up with those expectations that we have and that other people have for The Grove ... you know, there’s only so much we can charge.”
But with the pandemic in the rear-vision mirror and the road works for the City Rail Link now easing on adjacent Albert St, have they not endured the worst of it?
One catalyst was the renewal of the lease on the St Patrick’s Square building that has housed The Grove for the past two decades. They had a call to make – whether to renew for another six years from February. Six years seemed like a long time, especially with other ideas percolating and dreams brewing.
“We’re really creative people,” says Michael Dearth.
“We love hospitality, our sister restaurant Baduzzi which is open for lunch and dinner every day is like our office. I have photos of my mum and dad, my grandmother and my grandfather and my great-grandparents on the Baduzzi menu.
“Opportunity is always going to be there if you love what you do. We could absolutely keep fighting within the fine-dining space.
“But I love to garden and I think that if you want a tree to bear fruit, you have to prune it. I think there’s going be a lot of juicy fruit in our future. But we have to make this decision and this decision is based on health for our immediate family [and] the health of what we do.”
The work has been relentless over the years, as the Dearths turned their dream firstly into a reality and then a New Zealand hospitality icon.
The awards have been plentiful; The Grove has regularly featured over the past two decades as the best restaurant in magazines such as Viva, Cuisine and Metro. Trip Advisor ranked it the ninth-best restaurant in the world.
In the Metro restaurant awards this year, chef Cory Campbell was named best chef; sommelier Andrea Martinis was named best sommelier. The Grove won the award for best fine-dining restaurant.
Viva restaurant reviewer Jesse Mulligan wrote on the occasion of The Grove’s 20th birthday earlier this year: “I’ve had some of the best meals of my life at The Grove; the quality and consistency when one chef leaves and a new one arrives is unbelievable.” He’s never given it less than a 19/20 for his reviews.
The Grove has been the breeding ground for many of this country’s finest chefs – aside from Campbell now, there has been Ben Bayley, Sid Sahrawat and Michael Meredith. They and many other staff have gone on to form their own businesses.
Michael Dearth puts much of The Grove’s success down to a consistent refinement of what it offers.
“We’ve always been fortunate to have this law of attraction in getting some of these great young up-and-coming talented chefs,” he says.
They would then go on to open their own restaurants, forcing a rethink.
“OK, that just happened – what are going to do now? It makes us look at everything we do, like who are we? It was almost like a refresh. I think that a perceived negative thing was actually a positive thing because it made us really look at what we do and why we do it.”
They have had loyal customers since day one and there have also been famous faces.
Pat Benatar dined there one Valentine’s Day. Dearth played Love is a Battlefield for the restaurant music.
“She was like, ‘You’re a geek!’ She just laughed at me and I love that. Everyone in the restaurant was smirking because they knew Pat Benatar was at that table.”
Other guests have included Sir Ian McKellen, Rick Stein and Michael Stipe.
US actress and businesswoman Eva Longoria loved her meal at The Grove and found out the Dearths owned Baduzzi. She wanted to eat there the next night, with the Dearths.
“I went home to tell Annette: ‘Annette, Eva Longoria wants to have dinner with us at Baduzzi tomorrow night’. And she was like, ‘I’m not having dinner with Eva Longoria! No way!’ So I went to dinner because I’m not missing out. We sat at this booth at Baduzzi – Eva Longoria, her partner and myself. Everyone was in the restaurant looking, ‘like what is going on?’ – we hung out, we had a meal which was cool.”
One of Dearth’s happiest experiences was the day that The Grove was fully booked for the first time.
“I’ve said this story many times but it really is so heartwarming. I started walking down at this end and somebody just happened to have a big laugh. I continued walking; and to the left, somebody else had a big laugh. I walked down to the very end of the dining room and somebody else just burst out laughing.
“It was this pride and joy of like, wow, we are full to the rafters, every seat is full. People are having a good time.”
Annette adds: “That’s what hospitality is – you throw a dinner party every night and you want people just to have fun.”
She does not believe fine-dining is dead. Kiwi diners have gone more casual, for sure, but there is still a market for a higher level of service. “There’s always going to be a space for a birthday, an anniversary and celebration.”
The pair have helped lift the standard of dining in Auckland and indeed across New Zealand. Their standards are exemplary.
Michael Dearth – who is still recognised these days for his stint as a judge on TV’s Masterchef – says one of the powers of hospitality is to suspend time, perhaps for someone who’s had a bad day or a break-up.
“Some of my favourite moments are when you can tell time is being suspended for people, it’s like there’s this alchemy, there’s this magic that we are conducting. It’s like you’re part-court jester, part-mad scientist and you can just make it stop whatever world you’re in and I’m going to bring you into our world and show you some magic.”
For now, the Dearths want to extend that magic for another two months. They want to thank their customers and their 25 staff for all of their support, ahead of the final night, on Saturday, March 1. They expect some of their staff will move to Baduzzi.
“We’ve had a great 20 years and I think it’s time for this chapter to wrap up, which will close the book on The Grove,” says Michael Dearth.
“There’s a big mixed bag of emotions. It’s a bit of melancholy, a bit of joy, a bit of relief, a bit of hope and opportunity.
“Definitely ego is involved where you’re just like, ‘Oh, I can keep fighting and I can show people’, you’re constantly getting judged in this industry.
“If you sign up for this in hospitality, that’s just part and parcel of what you do, you have to just kind of move on and do it and be prepared.”
They are looking forward to what’s next.
“I think there is this freedom, there’s an opportunity there and it feels, it feels actually like the right thing to do. Twenty years is a long time. It just feels right,” says Michael.
“I like the way we’re going about this. We just want to be caring, respectful to our customers, to our staff and we want to be professional and just go out with our heads held high.”
Annette: “And have fun. I just want to celebrate.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor.
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