Two of Wellington’s more adventurous hospitality sector celebs, Shepherd Elliott and Sean Golding. have launched Concord, a new restaurant in Wellington.
They are the owners of six Wellington businesses: Golding is behind the Free Dive craft beer bar, natural-wine bar Puffin, and the Intrepid Hotel, and Shepherd is the proprietor of Donnie Taco and the acclaimed Leeds St restaurant, Shepherd.
Both Donnie taco and the Intrepid opened after New Zealand closed its borders due to Covid. Then, with Omicron rampant throughout New Zealand, they decided to open Concord, a new restaurant, in the site of the iconic The Lido on the corner of Wakefield and Victoria Streets.
It’s always a challenging time to open a new restaurant, but Golding and Elliott’s new enterprise is opening at a time when the country’s hospitality sector is having a very tough time.
“Some people might think it’s a crazy time to open,” Elliott acknowledges.
The business partners say “actually having a purpose and building something new has been really good for our morale and our energy.” Left, some of Golding’s sketches for the Concord fit-out; right, the interior of Golding’s Free Dive.
“I don’t think there’s many people opening right now. But we think it’s a good time for us to open something like this and be ready for when New Zealand opens back up and everybody starts coming back out again.”
He went on to say, “actually having a purpose and building something new has been really good for our morale and our energy to put back into the other restaurants too.”
Golding and Elliott, whether working separately or together, have a history of spotting a wave just before it peaks. Golding’s Deep Dive set the standard for Wellington’s widespread dive-styled craft beer bars when it opened in 2013, Similarly, sourdough was brought to the capital when the Leeds St Bakery was opened, Then Puffin brought the European natural wine bar concept to Wellington.
They are not chasing trends though according to Golding.
“I don’t really know what trends are,” he insists. “I don’t know what that actually means. I don’t know if I could describe that. It’s too fleeting of an idea for me.”
He gave a lot of credit to the co-owner and manager, Hannah Wells.
“I helped her build something that was her dream and that’s her bar. I’m fortunate enough to be part of that with her, but Puffin is Hannah’s, as Golding’s is mine.”
This is the basis for the success. Elliott and Golding don’t create businesses for other people but for themselves.
“We build places that we want to go to,” Golding says. “We’ve built places that we want to eat in, we want to drink in, and that’s it really.”
For example, Concord.
“I know a lot of people have a very strong attachment to The Lido, but things change and [former owner] Frank [De Roose] was done,” says Golding.
They are well aware of legacy of The Lido and want to respect the Art Nouveau-style Racing Building, but they have stamped their own mark on it.
“And we’re not trying to make the Lido again,” Elliott suggests. “This will be its own place. I think we’re just trying to be respectful of the building and what we can do in it.”
The old cafe, Golding says, was “really nice, but I always thought that Shep was a little constrained there. There was a better story for him, I thought, than a daytime cafe… So I just said to him – Do you want to open a restaurant?”
“And I was like, hell yeah,” says Elliott, and so Shepherd, in Leeds St, was opened.
“The food needed to be showcased to more people. It’s phenomenal,” Golding gushes.
“Shep’s probably the most talented chef I’ve ever eaten from in my life,” said Golding. “The casualness, but the attention to detail, is mindblowing. There isn’t a laboured piece of food on [the plate], but everything is incredibly thoughtful and I just thought, there isn’t one thing that’s done as a gimmick, and there isn’t one thing that’s put on there that isn’t needed. He has the restraint to do less, which I always find so admirable.”
That was the idea behind Shepherd, which was opened in a former seven-bedroom student flat (“It was gross,” says Elliott) across the lane from Goldings in 2016. But Golding and Elliott are not interested in trying to recreate any of their successful establishments but creating an entity of its own.
Elliott describes the food at Concord as “luxury European bistro crossed with New York steakhouse”.
Some of the ideas for Concord came from the Building’s art-deco styling, and the opulence of the Concorde supersonic airliner. However, don’t expect it to formal or fussy or formal.
“At Shepherd there’s a lot of innovation and things like that, but this is about cooking food that everyone’s had before and [is] familiar with, but [to] an exceptional level,” Golding says.
“This is customer-focused, this is a diner’s restaurant, and this is a celebration with your friends.”
Elliott will be composing the menus but will be more of an executive chef, not working in the kitchen every evening.
Golding’s role has been on the customer-facing design side of the business.
The wave design over the windows is repeated in many of the design elements of Concord, so it is safe to say that the fit-out is similar to its predecessors.
Source: Stuff