Growing up on the Kāpiti Coast, Hayden Smith began his career in a small-town restaurant as a kitchen hand. In the early nineties, Smith began working at Shed 5, an upscale Wellington institution known for its seafood-centric menu and other restaurants across the North Island. He had a desire to increase his knowledge and expand his horizons and ventured to the UK for six years, where he worked at the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath and as a sous chef at Marco Pierre White’s Quo Vadis in London. This experience led him to become Head Chef at London’s Lanes Restaurant before returning to the Southern Hemisphere.
Smith spent five years in Melbourne, then jumped back over the ditch to take on the role of Head Chef at renowned Auckland waterfront restaurant Euro. Working alongside Simon Gault, Smith became instrumental in creating unique and innovative menus populated by simple ingredients and mouth-watering flavours. After four years at the helm of Euro and having started a family, the chef swapped his apron for a PC in a new role as Senior Recipe Developer at My Food Bag.
Being out of hospitality’s fast-paced kitchens for a few years, Smith felt the urge to return. The management side of food and hospitality has always interested Smith, as he really enjoys connecting with new people. It was the industry and people he fell in love with most of all, right from his first day as a kitchen hand, and his passion for food and cookery grew over time.
“I loved the fact that if you worked hard and did a good job, all differences and backgrounds were embraced.”
With this draw, Smith now works as Head of Kitchen Operations at Good Spirits Hospitality. The role is an opportunity for Smith to challenge himself in a different sector within the industry, previously unknown to him, creating a vision and working with a lot of great people while helping to mentor young chefs.
Good Spirits Hospitality (GSH) is a network of nine establishments across two New Zealand cities. Sitting at the intersection of connection, community and culture, the network’s focus is on creating warm and welcoming venues that cultivate a sense of inclusion and belonging.
As Head of Operations, Smith gets to work with amazing, interesting individuals from all walks of life and enjoys exploring other people’s points of view and learning from them. Every day presents new challenges and opportunities, which Smith sees as both a pleasure and a curse of the role.
“I’ll often come into work knowing exactly what I need to achieve, and within two minutes, that has been thrown out of the window, and I am focused on something completely different.”
Smith oversees GSH’s ten venues, which are broken down into Pubs and Gastro Pubs. Some of the network’s venues include The Fox - A London Pub, O’Hagan’s, The Cav, Citizen Park, Botany Commons, and Union Post Danny’s. He has a kitchen team of 55 across the GSH venues.
Having worked in multiple sectors within the industry, Smith’s style is able to change to suit customers’ needs but is always based on solid fundamentals of doing the simple things right.
“I’m a bit of a traditionalist with a modern twist. I like simple, clean, uncomplicated flavours with a touch of refinement.”
At the moment, Smith’s vision is to deliver progressive menus that showcase creativity in a comfortable, familiar style, become the best food in category, and to deliver a lasting customer experience.
In recent years, he has focused on staff culture by creating inclusive kitchens where everyone feels heard and valued and at home based on shared unity, purpose and respect. Smith prioritises genuine connections with each team member to ensure they know the team is all in it together, has each other’s backs, and does what it takes to make sure everyone feels included, supported and appreciated.
The biggest challenge the chef has faced in the last year has been staffing shortages and retention. His work to improve kitchen culture has helped in the face of this, but GSH is not immune to staff losses. Post-Covid, many have rethought their careers in hospitality and not having working holiday makers in the sector has meant the GSH team has really had to think about how to continue giving world-class customer experience while not jeopardising staff experience. A huge amount of work has been put into engineering menus that are tailored to customer's needs at each specific site. Within this, Smith assessed each kitchen team’s capability of making strategic dish selections for ease of service and maximum customer satisfaction. Though some may leave, a good number of chefs have also recently returned to GSH, credited to Smith’s creation of good kitchen culture.
Citizen Park
First and foremost, Hayden Smith has treated cooking as a trade and craft, but this vehicle allowed him to follow his passion for travel. Now firmly back in New Zealand’s hospitality industry, the GSH Head of Operations’ advice to those at the beginning of their journey is not to be afraid to start at the bottom. Hard work and honing of skills will allow new hospitality workers to nail the basics, and everything can fall into place when treating people and their time with respect.
