The magical world of restaurant staff meals
What workers at some of our favourite food establishments eat when the rush is over.
Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to The Boil Up, The Spinoff’s weekly food newsletter produced in partnership with Boring Oat Milk. Written by me, Charlotte Muru-Lanning. It’s lovely to have you here!
This week is work week at The Spinoff – seven days of content dedicated to unpacking our relationship with the world of work. When I considered how I’d approach that in this newsletter, far too many ideas came to mind. Work and food are intimately related. Whatever is on our plate, in our bowl or tupperware container represents time, labour, skills, and knowledge. That is to say, at its most unsentimental level, food represents work.
So, what about the kai that those who work in the food industry eat? The staff meal is a long-held tradition in the hospitality industry. Simply by dint of the job, people who work in hospitality tend to be washing dishes, pouring wine, behind a deep fryer or frothing milk when most of us would ordinarily be sitting down to enjoy one of our three daily meals. As such, the staff meal is a tiny yet important instance afforded to workers when hospitality is reciprocated. It’s a pragmatic perk of the job for (oftentimes low-waged and time-poor) workers, often with gains in camaraderie among staff and knowledge of the menu built in too.
There may be tradition imbued within the staff meal, but how it takes place is bewilderingly diverse. It could be a communal affair, or eaten solo. Some set aside time before opening or after closing for a shared feed. For others, a staff meal is eaten unexpectedly, in a quiet lull of a shift. Frequently, a staff meal makes use of food that might have otherwise gone to waste. More often than not, and perhaps what makes the staff meal most intriguing, is that whatever is served is off-menu.
In some cases, staff meals and breaks are fraught. A recent survey of hospitality workers by AUT found that while the majority always received a break, a significant number either never received their entitled rest break on shift or only received their entitlements sometimes. I’ve spoken to hospitality workers recently who described having nowhere to eat their staff meals, or who are expected to pay for all or part of their meal. In an industry with the title it has, it’s a miserly reality.
I asked some of my favourites in hospitality to share their staff meals – here’s a peek behind the curtains.
At Auckland northern Thai restaurant Kiin: “What the team had for lunch on Saturday was: Thai omelette, Panang beef slow cooked, pork bone tom zap soup, using the pork bones from our broth pot, and adding spicy and sour flavouring, and jasmine rice. My father in law (Somkiat Chatthai) and his wife (Nitchapha Kasanthia) are the ones responsible for all the great food at Kiin.” – Bon, manager
At Auckland bar and bistro Bar Magda: “Pancit palabok is a popular Filipino afternoon snack/merienda of rice noodles, orange sauce (made of shrimp, garlic, ginger, onion, annatto), pork mince, shrimp, fried garlic, boiled egg, spring onion. Our staff meal is usually around 4.30pm, [for] about 30 minutes. Weather dependent, we either have it inside the dining room or by the sun deck outside. This particular dish was served as a platter, then dished out to each team member. Nothing fancy, just something hearty and tasty.” – Carlo Buenaventura, owner/ chef
At Wellington Burmese restaurant Mabel’s: “Our staff meals here at Mabel’s consist of mainly leftovers. Saturday is always the best night for staff meals as it’s the last day that we’re open for the week so the crew get the works. We all eat together after service, which is around 10pm. The team have their staffies and eat at the bar tables of the restaurant while playing a card game called Yaniv or doing some quizzes and crosswords. When Aunty Kamini, who works in the kitchen, cooks our staff meal, she makes us generous portions of the most delicious Sri Lankan curries. She knew my grandmother Mabel and it’s nice to have that connection.” – Marlar Boon, owner
At Christchurch cafe Tom’s: “I ate an American cheese, gherkin, mustard and mayo toastie at 11.30am to make logging into Xero feel a bit better. I sat in the sunniest window spot of the cafe and the break was for 30 mins.” – Tom Worthington, owner
At Christchurch vegetable and kaimoana restaurant Gatherings: “We sit down at a little old table in an alleyway around the back of the restaurant every evening to eat together. It’s an important part of the day, where we chat, catch up and socialise. We take our time and usually sit down for half an hour or so when all the guests have finished eating or have all left . We often have a bottle of wine too, to better understand what we are pouring at the time, and just because drinking wine is fun. In the photo we had a tomato casserole seasoned with harissa on toast with a fried egg and green salad. We take turns cooking staff meals. I cooked this one. Finbar, Holly, Dylan, Matt and Thomas were a part of it.” – Alex Davies, owner/ chef
At Auckland restaurant Ruang Thong Thai 4: “A staff lunch this week of chicken feet with vermicelli noodle soup.” – Anon
At Wellington Greek restaurant Oikos Hellenic Cuisine: “Fried rice and chicken adobo – the adobo was cooked by Francis, who cooks Greek food all day, he's from the Philippines so it's nice for him to share his food. Also you'll see there are feta containers that staff use if they sign out first to take away. Everyone also gets a drink if we hit a certain amount of sales, which happens more often than not.” –Theo Papouis, owner/ chef
At McDonald’s Wairau in Auckland: “For me, it's usually a Quarter Pounder and small Sprite No Sugar without ice. This was at 12.45pm Saturday, for a 15 minute break. We only get half-priced meals though. At my store a quarter pounder costs $8, so I get it for $4. We have a limited menu of what we can get for half-price. Small tea, filter coffee (which is just a long black with a splash of cold milk) and soft drinks are free.” – Xavier Walsh, staff
At Auckland Japanese restaurant Sake Bar Icco: “This was our staff meal for Saturday dinner at the restaurant at 11pm, after work. Ikko (owner/ head chef), Hiroshi (second chef) and I ate it at the restaurant. Diced sashimi fish marinated in yuzu citrus dressing, tempura courgettes and crispy rice, pickled carrot, pickled cabbage, egg and rice.” – Junko, owner/ manager
At Auckland cafe Coffee Pen: “Hashbrown-based bacon frittata on the counter seat of the inside of Pen at 11.45am, 15 min.” – Rassani Tolovaa, staff
At Auckland bakery Florets: “We work really hard to end the day with little to no food waste, so when it comes to team lunches we always use up bread ends, and any ingredients we have in excess. For breakfast we make mini buns with leftover dough for the team and serve these with Danbo cheese and plum jam. This mushroom sandwich shows how we used the stems of roasted button mushrooms that were not included in our sandwiches. We always have a batch of cold brew for afternoon coffee too.” – Maya Handley, owner
At Auckland bar and music venue The Wine Cellar: “I got this ‘summer salad’ because I’m brainwashed by TikTok viral food trends and it looked like the kani salad that was poppin’ off last year. It’s around 6pm now, I started work at 4pm and opened up the bar at 5pm. I work by myself once a week, so today I’m just here behind the bar having a lil casual munch. Soon I’m gonna eat cornichons, sage and onion Proper Crisps and some smoked cheddar from the fridge out back.” – Dorian, staff
At Auckland Indonesian restaurant It’s Java: “Pictured here is Fitri, our front of house manager, eating a simple yet action-packed meal of rice, Indonesian gado-gado with peanut sauce, and plant-based proteins tofu and tempe at closing time of 10pm last night in a corner of the kitchen.” – Adriana Ferdian, owner
The Boil Up is brought to you in partnership with Boring Oat Milk.
Made with a tough crowd in mind, Boring Barista Grade Oat Milk is smooth, creamy and delicious. Great for the pros in cafes and everyday milk stuff at home, it complements your brew by letting the espresso shine and holds its texture nicely when poured. Think of coffee as the lead singer while Boring is on drums. Head to boringmilk.com for an untapped supply of New Zealand made oat milk straight from the source. Check the box that says ‘Subscription’ and save 10%.
Weekly bites
(Extra-short news bites this week because of the extra-long intro)
New Zealand-grown black truffles sell for between $2 and $3 per gram and as such, I have never had a high enough salary or wages for truffles to cross my mind with any regularity, but a truffle story this week has piqued my interest. A collective of seven Māori land blocks in the eastern Bay of Plenty has obtained $1.1 million from the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund to plant 13 hectares of truffle trees.
Last week, Stewart Sowman-Lund unwrapped the not-so-sweet story behind small chocolate company Potter Brothers – which despite marketing itself as “handcrafted”, had been accused of “just buying lollies and covering them in chocolate”. The saga came to an end this week with the business releasing a statement admitting the truth behind how their sweets are made.
A message from Anna Rawhiti-Connell, editor of The Bulletin and head of audience at The Spinoff I want to say a huge thank you to everyone reading who is a Spinoff Member. Thank you for valuing independent journalism and helping keep it free for everyone. If you’re not a member yet but would like to support our mahi, sign up today!
The weekly snack
Imuraya yawa mochi strawberry and chocolate frozen dessert, $3.99 from Fruit World Epsom: The best kinds of snacks are always incidental. Appearing in your life as a way to fill the time at extended intervals between appointments, as you wait for a bus or, in the case of this snack, accidentally arrive at your grandma’s rest home two hours before they open to visitors. The appeal of this little cup of ice cream was less about filling up (I’d already eaten), and more about adding a bit of razzle dazzle to an otherwise boring wait in the park. After all, if you’re biding time on a Sunday, you may as well make it a bit special. Despite being slightly frost-bitten, all the right notes and tones were hit by this little pottle: brightly astringent strawberry, semi-dark chocolate and the earthy chew of mochi. Perhaps my favourite part of this was peeling back the glamorous looking imagery on the lid to reveal a fantastically inconsistent reality. A quintessential “what I ordered vs what I received” experience. 7/10.
Talk next week!
Hei kōnā mai, Charlotte
