Raising the bar: a market place

File under: drink, food, retail, Wellington

My latest idle suggestion is not a bar as such, though a bar would definitely be an important component. I think Wellington should have a high-quality permanent food market, selling nothing but the best of local produce, and that it should include a restaurant and bar with a menu that changes daily based upon seasonal availability.

When I say "local" produce, I don't mean just within the Wellington region, as that would be too restrictive, but within central New Zealand: approximately from Napier to Kaikoura. That takes in Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, the Kapiti Coast, Nelson and Marlborough, each of which has its own distinctive range of food and beverages. Selling exclusively local produce not only promotes our producers and reduces food miles, it contributes to our unique sense of place.

I envisage something like a cross between Moore Wilson Fresh and the Martinborough Wine Centre, but with a restaurant and bar attached. In fact Moore Wilson could be the ideal company to run such a place, and this wouldn't compete with their existing shop (which is hardly struggling for customers anyway) since it wouldn't stock non-local ingredients or as wide a selection of bulk fresh produce. The Martinborough Wine Centre concept involves tasting stalls for individual producers, giving the sense of a permanent indoor wine festival. Local wine and boutique beer are obvious choices for the bar, but there could be some very creative cocktails made from local spirits and fresh ingredients. It's common in Europe for food markets to include a restaurant, and in this case it could either be a fine-dining venue or more of a casual deli. The complex as a whole would bring together many related aspects of food and drink in a celebration of local and seasonal ingredients.

There are many potential locations for such a market, but one stands out for me. The Odlin Building is part of Taranaki St Wharf, which acts as a "hinge" between the north-south oriented downtown waterfront and the east-west orientation from here to Oriental Bay. It gets a lot of foot and cycle traffic at rush hour, so it would be a good place for people to pop in and grab something fresh to take home for dinner. Office workers in this and the adjoining buildings could grab a sandwich from the deli and sit by the lagoon to eat it. Its unique focus on local ingredients would make it a tourist attraction, with maps and displays for each producer so that visitors could find out how to visit a winery that takes their fancy. At night, the restaurant and bar would complement the existing and upcoming venues in the vicinity. And the "wharf timber garden" in front could even provide supports for a canvas roof, hosting an outdoor farmers' market at weekends.

The ground floor space here has been empty since its completion, but I gather that it has been leased by Lion Breweries with the intent of sub-letting it. They're not in any hurry to find a tenant, though, since they're mostly keen on preventing their competitor DB from moving in here, next to the Lion-owned Mac's Brewery Bar next door. Also, tenants may be wary of opening here until the Taranaki St Wharf developments are complete, creating a critical mass of activity to reduce the risk. But I think that the market bar concept could combine a practical service with a unique destination appeal, thus making it an attractor in its own right.