Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2018 i Metro NZ

One Sunday, a few weeks ago, New Zealand-born Samoan opera star Marlena Devoe had the kind of moment that dreams are made of. As understudy for the lead-soprano role in the Verdi opera Falstaff at the Royal Opera House in London, she never expected to see the stage. But then the Puerto Rican singer Ana María Martínez took ill. “It was bizarre because that never happens,” says Devoe. “But they pulled me in and said, ‘Ana María has allergies and can’t sing.’” Devoe hadn’t worked with the conductor. “I wish I’d had more time singing with the others but you take those chances when you get them.” In September, 31-year-old Devoe makes her debut with New Zealand Opera, as Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème. She’s happy…

Turn on the TV any night of the week and you’re almost certain to find yourself looking at a home improvement show of some description. New Zealand is clearly a nation of home enthusiasts — and that’s putting it mildly. Home improvement takes on many forms — painting, extending, landscaping — but with damp homes increasingly on our radar, home ventilation is becoming a must-have. It’s no secret that New Zealand households experience a number of moisture problems and that these can can create cold and uncomfortable living environments. A house condition study conducted by the Building Research Association of New Zealand found that mould was visible in nearly half of all houses surveyed*. HRV ventilation is a proven and effective way to reduce excess moisture. And, when partnered with…

The Auckland market is up there with the best — for better or worse. Peter Thompson, managing director At Barfoot & Thompson, we’re very much involved with the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE) organisation. We’re one of only two New Zealand firms invited to join. As well as being a source of global statistics, information and support, the organisation acts as a referral network. Vendors are put in touch with quality real estate agencies and people all around the globe that have the opportunity to look at their listing. LeadingRE has noted that there is a big shift globally away from countries such as the United States and United Kingdom. We are now seeing India and China and the Asean countries, which include the Philippines and Vietnam,…

1. SUBURB GROUP Suburbs are grouped when adjacent and considered broadly equivalent from a home-hunter’s point of view. *Central-city and Newmarket property data relates only to apartments. 2. VALUE Median (midpoint) house and apartment values were derived using property data firm CoreLogic’s E-Valuer, which gives an instant estimate of the current market value of a property based on recent, nearby comparable sales. Each sale is weighted based on its similarity. Using E-Valuer, CoreLogic calculated the median value of all houses or apartments in each of our suburb groups. We chose this measure over median sales because it reflects robust estimates for every single property, rather than only those that happened to have sold in a given period. 3/4. RISE IN PAST 2 YEARS & SINCE 2007 PEAK The percentage change…

There are a range of repayment options. You could choose fixed, floating or even revolving credit. Sometimes a mix works. A fixed home loan gives you certainty. Your interest rate is fixed for a period of time and you know exactly how much you’ll pay each loan payment. A floating home loan rate goes up and down with interest rates but provides more flexibility when you’re wanting to pay off your loan faster. Revolving credit suits some buyers and works like an overdraft. You can withdraw money up to your credit limit when you need to for a fixed monthly fee.…

GUSTO AT THE GRAND SKYCITY Grand Hotel 90 Federal St, Auckland Ph 09 363 7030 gustoatthegrand.co.nz A rustic Italian restaurant showcasing simple food, classic flavours and fresh seasonal ingredients. With a menu designed by renowned chef Sean Connolly, Gusto is the perfect spot to share delicious Italian dishes amongst friends and family. Open 7 days from 6.30am, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. PORTOBELLO/ ED STREET 27 Edinburgh St, Pukekohe. Portobello upstairs at Ed Street Ph 09 238 1143 info@edinburghstreet.co.nz edst.co.nz Pukekohe’s Old Fire Station transformed to a modern Bar & Restaurant. Portobello open from Tuesday to Sunday from 5.30pm. Available for exclusive hire. BIRD ON A WIRE Located in Ponsonby, Orakei & Takapuna birdonawire.co.nz At Bird On A Wire we believe in serving delicious wholesome food that nourishes our body. Our…

Founder’s Wakeup Call is the ultimate cocktail to start your night or liven up a long lunch. The ever-popular espresso martini is made here with the delicious creamy notes of The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve. FOUNDER’S WAKEUP CALL 40ml The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve 20ml coffee liqueur 20ml espresso coffee Dash vanilla syrup Fill a shaker with ice and add Founder’s Reserve, liqueur and vanilla syrup. Shake and serve in coupette glasses with a garnish of grated dark chocolate.…

ART MATAKANA Located within the Matakana Country Park, Art Matakana is the area's longest established fine art gallery. Art Matakana represents a range of talented New Zealand artists, both well-known and emerging. We exhibit an ever-changing selection of paintings, indoor/ outdoor sculptures, ceramics, prints, and jewellery. All works can be viewed and purchased via our website. 1 Omaha Flats Rd, Matakana Ph 09 422 9790 artmatakana.com ESTUARY ARTS Estuary Arts Centre in Orewa on the sunny Hibiscus Coast showcases a wide range of art in five boutique gallery spaces. Exhibitions change monthly. The onsite café makes for a great destination. Ample parking and just 40 minutes from Auckland city. Open 7 days a week 9am to 4pm Ph 09 426 5570 manager@estuaryarts.org  estuaryarts.org GOW LANGSFORD GALLERY…

Choosing the restaurants worthy of Auckland’s Top 50 Cheap Eats list for 2018 involved, among other things, a great deal of noodle slurping. We started with a long-list of contenders, relishing the discovery of places that have popped up over the past year, and making forays into forgotten corners of the city to revisit old favourites. We also worked with a set of criteria that included serving a delicious meal for $20 or less per head (not including drinks), being open in the evening and offering the option of eating in. Unkind lighting, a blaring TV, mismatched cutlery, plastic chairs, service that’s a bit brisk — unlike our other Top 50 restaurant lists, none of these things necessarily meant a restaurant was struck from the race. First and foremost, it…

Back when Natasha Ovely was living in Berlin, she labelled a coin jar on top of her fridge “Starving Artists Fund”. “Being a former art-school kid, everybody knows what it’s like: you put all your money into your materials and feel like you’re just throwing it into a black hole and nothing is coming out,” she says with a laugh over a flat white at The Store in Britomart. The cash collected would finance cups of coffee and trips to the flea market to decorate her apartment. Now, having relocated to Mt Eden in May, she’s launching a fashion label with the same moniker. “I thought it would be such a redeeming feeling to actually be making something where you can get something back to sustain your practice and keep…

Anew way of life, of communicating, has taken over my daily interactions. Like most change, it seeped in slowly, a small concession here, a little compromise there, the metamorphosis so gradual, it is only shocking when you stop and look back. My husband disappears for hours at night. This is the new normal. He may quietly slip into bed, freezing, at 1am at the earliest on weeknights, 3am at weekends. New words and terms have been added to our daily vernacular — readying up, minis, looting, mining for mats. If I want to ask how his day was, I might ask him if he got any dubs. There have been various media reports warning parents of the addictive power this particular beast may wield over their teens. Not much warning…

7 SIRI TASTE SRI LANKA 580 Sandringham Rd, Sandringham B BANNSANG 1c/47 High St, central city BBQ DUCK CAFE 350 and 115 Queen St, central city BI WON KOREAN 29 Link Drive, Wairau Valley BURGER BURGER 4 Brown St, Ponsonby (also at 3B York St, Newmarket, and 40 Hurtsmere Rd, Takapuna) C CAFE ABYSSINIA Tulja Centre, 190 Stoddard Rd, Mt Roskill CHI CHI KITCHEN 1c Rawhiti Rd, Onehunga CHONGQING NOODLES 340 Dominion Rd, Balmoral (also at 23a Wellesley St, central city) D DUMPLING ACE 39 Pearn Place, Northcote E EDEN NOODLES 105 Dominion Rd, Balmoral G GUILIN RICE NOODLES 263 Dominion Rd, Balmoral H HAPPY CAFE 697 Manukau Rd, Royal Oak HONG KONG KITCHEN 290 Apirana Ave, Glen Innes HUNGRY HEAD 8c Torrens Rd, Burswood J J’S TEA 919 Dominion…

Apartments are now seen as a great value-for-money investment. Matt Baird, Auckland projects manager There’s been a big shift since I started in property in the 90s. We’re now seeing larger, more design-focused apartments and there are a lot more owner-occupiers. What’s nice to see is that today’s buyers are discerning, they’ve travelled and have an appreciation for how great apartment living can work. On top of that, the good developers have got better and they’re really meeting the demand of the public. They’ve unlocked new parts of the city such as Wynyard Quarter, the Viaduct and Britomart, which are great places to live, work and play. Owner-occupiers expect a quality product with good amenities. If they’re going to sacrifice 200 square metres for 100, they will, but only as…

Huami’s more-is-more attitude is obvious from the moment you walk through the lipstick-red lacquered doors into the opulent SkyCity-owned Shanghai- inspired dining room. The restaurant has three private rooms, a temperature-controlled cellar, a duck-ageing room, live-seafood tanks, a bespoke wood-fired oven providing the focal point of the main dining room, and open-plan kitchens. The menu is as extravagant as the fit-out, with prices up into three figures. With all that luxe, you might feel like a rich-lister for an hour or so. And honestly, that’s a pretty good feeling. Things start well with drinks in the bar, one of the best stocked in the city; it has a page-long gin list, “whisky wall”, and house baijiu (Chinese distilled spirit). Cocktails are excellent. The Royal 75 with lychee, gin and champagne…

My mother had been to this wonderful party and was all dressed up. She fell out of the car door. I was sitting beside her and she was gone. This bracelet (main photo) took all the impact as she went rolling down the road. So it’s my lucky bracelet. It’s scraped, but I love it. I’ve worn it my whole life. My mother was older. She was 36 when she had me. My sister and brother are 17 and 18 years older than me, so I was like an only child. My family moved here from the north of England when the shipyards closed. There was no work. I was really odd at school. I did theatre and everyone did netball. I was always a bit eccentric, but I don’t…

THE JEFFERSON This underground speakeasy is Auckland’s biggest whisky bar, with over 600 to choose from. It’s a must for any whisky fan. CARETAKER This New York-style cocktail bar is fantastic for a delicious mixed drink, but also has a considerable whisky range to work your way through. COLEY & PUNCH Named in honour of famous London bartender, Ada Coleman, Coley & Punch boasts great cocktails and a collection of over 300 whiskies. THE WHISKEY With live music and an intimate space on the Ponsonby strip, The Whiskey offers a great night out as well as a tasty dram. THE CORK Home to over 100 whiskies from all over the world, Cork is an excellent venue to enjoy a dram - find it just off Ponsonby Rd on Mackelvie St.…

REVIEW - ALEC REDVERS-HILL Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa David Peace Faber, $33 David Peace’s 10th novel, Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , is not so much a novel as a collection of 12 short narratives centred around the life, times, and works of Akutagawa, one of the pioneers of modern Japanese literature and known largely in the West as the author of the stories on which the film Rashomon is based. The novel begins with a reimagining of Akutagawa’s short story The Spider Thread, in which the Buddha sends a spider down to hell to save a criminal, Kandata. As Kandata climbs up the spider’s thread, he sees that all the other sinners are climbing up behind him…

SABATO SPICE We’re loving La Chinata paprika flakes over pizza, paella, kumara chips, mashed potato or in soups and grain dishes. With a new grinder bottle, these products are a fun addition to your pantry and allow you to add a flavour boost to your food DIY-style at the table. Available in three flavours, hot, bitter-sweet and sweet. sabato.co.nz. TOYO-SASAKI GLASS — FINO RANGE FROM NEWTOWN HOUSE› Elegant design, light in the hand and incredibly hard-wearing tempered glass. Great for water, juice, or anything on the rocks. RRP $132 for a set of 6. Check out the full range of exclusive homewares at newtownhouse.co.nz — open 24/7. POWERFUL AND SLEEK We fit a massive amount of innovation into epically thin proportions. The Spectre x360 holds nothing back on performance, bringing…

01-If the Mission Bay “makeover” looks like the artist’s impressions, how will the residents know whether they’ve got home from Queensland? 02-Negotiated a four-day working week yet? 03-Or just keeping your head down in case someone realises how little you achieve in five days? 04-Is Simon one of those Bridges to Nowhere? 05-Racking up a few miles getting there, isn’t he? 06-Yes, it’s a spare bedroom in Takapuna, but couldn’t you register it in the Cayman Islands? 07-Isn’t it time 2005 called and asked for its Don Brash back? 08-Could Massey University’s loopy decision to uninvite him cost it that prestigious 332nd place in the world university rankings? 09-When Fashion Week runway models fall off their shoes, have they been de-platformed? 10-Does DoC use Monty Python’s dead-…

01- Mug, $85, and dripper, $75, by Yuko Ikeda, and chopping board, $40, all from Tür Studio; Red Red Wine, artwork (acrylic and oil on canvas), by Sarah Williams, $2000, from Seed Gallery; round vase, $35, from Babelogue. 02- Coral, $60, round vase, $65, and onyx cup, $60, all from Babelogue; Cuba vase (matt grey), $85, (medium), from Steiner Ceramics. 03- The Round table, by Companion, $299, from Companion Co-Design; pink temuka vase, $95, from Babelogue; John, artwork (acrylic and oil on board), by Sarah Williams, $1000, from Seed Gallery. 04- Jug, $50, from Babelogue; side plates, $16-17 each, chip bowl $18 (matt grey), all from Steiner Ceramics. 05- Border side table (black marble top), by Simon James, $1618, from Simon James Design; glass dish, $60, and shell, $20, both…

Tim Carter, Manurewa branch manager In Manurewa, our average sale price is around $675,000. Most of the people who come to us looking to buy are in that price range — and they’re first-home buyers or investors. There’s plenty of opportunity here, and in nearby Takanini. We’ve got a great community-focused development, the McLennan project, which is aimed at first-home buyers. It’s common, and really practical, to buy through KiwiSaver, but it does mean that it’s harder to buy at auction, as this requires you to be unconditional. While we’re seeing a rise in the “Bank of Mum and Dad” in Auckland, with parents pitching in to get their kids into their first home, out here in Manurewa that’s always been the way. It’s not just mum and dad, it’s…

It’s impossible to write about housing affordability in New Zealand without getting into a debate about our high building costs. But while our Productivity Commission has estimated we pay between 20 and 30 per cent more for building materials in New Zealand than people do in Australia, there’s disagreement on how to solve the problem. Businessman Tex Edwards, founder of 2Degrees Mobile, recently chimed into the debate, claiming the construction sector lacks real competition because it’s dominated by just a few large players such as Carter Holt Harvey and Fletcher Building. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has calculated that New Zealand has a housing deficit of 71,000 homes. The huge shortage has led many to argue for a radical rethink in how we build, including a move towards…

• When you’re a home owner you’ll want to get insurance and budget for costs such as maintenance and rates. • Around 50 per cent of first home buyers let rooms to flatmates. It can be a great way to get extra money to put towards the home loan. • You can also look into ways to pay off your home loan sooner. “We encourage customers to use features that enable you to pay your loan off faster, such as Additional Payments or StepUp, which allow you to take control of your home loan.”…

First there was Rosie, Coco and Odette, and now there’s Augustus, Hugo, Madame George and Teddy. Auckland’s dining scene increasingly sounds like a royal wedding guest list, or the worst group of people to bump into on an OE. The latest proper noun on the block, new Ponsonby Rd bistro Teddy’s, opened in early April. It’s taken over the colonial villa that for the previous seven years housed Mark Wallbank’s contemporary Thai restaurant, MooChowChow. Like Wallbank, new owners Rob Hill and Oliver Scutts are hospo-savvy: Hill was behind the launch of Britomart’s 1885, while Scutts owns Three Lamps wine bar Annabel’s, as well as a rosé wine brand. From the outside, Teddy’s makes very little impact. Gone is the twinkly red of MooChowChow at night; in its place is a…

Whisky. That fiery drop. A dram of liquid sunshine. Long associated with a kind of stylish but earthy masculinity, the single malt is firmly rooted in tradition - a tradition of quality still being appreciated by the modern whisky drinker. Contemporary tastes have changed but the old-fashioned golden glow of whisky is now outshining its reputation as an older-man’s drop. “It’s great to see the perception of whisky changing worldwide,” says The Glenlivet ambassador David Wallace. “We’re finding there’s an increase in women enjoying whisky, with more of a 50/50 split of men and women at our tastings.” When it comes to spirits, there is a focus on quality, Wallace says. “People are becoming more conscious about what they are consuming, and they’re more concerned with quality brands that have…

“Bit of bad news, you chaps. No use beating about the bush, Jock’s gone.” “Gone?” echoed Simon. “Gone where?” For a moment Jim wondered exactly where, then put the unseemly speculation aside and said, “Sorry, Simon, but there it is. I mean — he’s dead.” The chaps are farmer Simon Hawkins and his shepherd Albert Winter, viewed by the district as being obsessed with finding a cure for bloat, and shifty, respectively. The messenger is farmer Jim Middleton, “an honest trader”. He has interrupted Simon and Albert at the sheep yards to inform them that Simon’s uncle Jock has had his skull crushed over on Pine Tree Farm. Jock’s much-loved thoroughbred, former winner of the Auckland Cup Fatal Lady, is in the frame. The mare gives her name to the…

BRACU 49 Main Rd, Bombay Ph 09 236 1030 bracu.co.nz Nestled amid our stunning olive grove, Bracu Restaurant offers elegant and contemporary cuisine in a truly exceptional setting. Experience exquisite dishes prepared by talented Head Chef Logan Clark with seasonal offerings from the estate’s gardens and passionate local producers. INDUSTRY ZEN 104D Customs St West, Viaduct Harbour Ph 09 307 0936 rikka.mokada@gmail.com A brand-new menu at this authentic Japanese in the heart of the city brings many Japanese favourites reinvented. Dining here is so much more than a meal — eat with your eyes, then savour every flavour at this spot well worth discovering. Mention this ad for one complimentary 180ml hot sake for the table. RAMEN DO 167 Symonds St Eden Terrace, Auckland Ph 09 377 1313 We make…

Things Jacinda and Clarke will just be learning about parenthood about now Neve is short for never asleep. She’s already grown out of all of the baby clothes she was gifted by an adoring public, thank god. How many precious hours you spend just holding your amazing bundle while googling, “Why won’t she poo?” You already have 6000 photos for the 21st Powerpoint montage. Everyone’s advice is years behind the current research findings, but buckle up, here it comes. Outsourced parenting: new places to factory-farm your tot Lord of the Flies leadership development camp. SkyCity carpark lock’n’leave crèche. Behind the Bikesheds advanced childcare. Papa Gandalf’s low-risk journeys there and back again. Wilberforce Subterranean Daycare and Slug-Petting Zoo. Peak scented candle: how to make your home smell nice without burning it…