To arrive through the heavy red door of Margot in Newtown is to be invited to the best dinner party in town, hosted by the best friends you haven’t yet made.
Table Service is a column about food and hospitality in Wellington, written by Nick Iles.
Hospitality is a term that is often misunderstood. Depending on what kind of person you are, you may see it as something quite different from others. There are those people who lurk in the dark, subterranean hallways of TripAdvisor and Facebook, who see it as a fundamental human prerogative that should be displayed at all times, regardless of the recipients’ appalling behaviour and demands for bigger portions. Some see it as a job that people do from the ages of 16 to 23, before they go and get “proper jobs” that their parents would actually be proud of. But for most of us, I hope we understand that hospitality is something much more.
It is an innate quality born of a genuine ability and desire to make others happy through sharing a lifelong dedication to food and drink. It’s something that takes a meal from being a really good dinner to an experience you think about for days after and plan a return the moment the bill is settled.
It is exactly this kind of hospitality that Juno Miers and Tom Adam bring to Margot in Newtown, a 26-seat modern European restaurant serving impeccable small plates. They both started their careers in hospitality at the age of 15 and have since held almost every role possible in the industry: from commis to head chef, barista, glass washer, cellar door management for a brewery, general manager and now, owner-operators. It is through this life dedicated to hospitality that they have managed to create something quite special. They met in 2015 while both working at Wellington’s The Bresolin, Juno front of house and Tom in the kitchen, and in 2022 took the leap and opened Margot, their first venture as a married couple. Tom concedes to being “scared shitless” about going it alone, not loving the idea of being judged on something so personal as their individual tastes. Juno was equally as nervous, but says she was “extremely confident” that people would love Tom’s food.
To arrive through the heavy red door of Margot is to be invited to the best dinner party in town, hosted by the best friends you haven’t yet made who luckily are just about to serve you the kind of food and drink you can normally only dream of. They welcome you in like you are the missing piece of the puzzle, and it is now time to really get going; Juno making her way around from the counter to greet you properly and Tom waving with his broad smile from behind the small cold section where he plies his trade.
I have eaten at Margot more times than I can remember, mainly due to the outrageous and ever-changing wine list and cocktail chalkboard that always requires thorough exploration. It is at once adventurous and fun, yet always excellent and delicious. Through her long career in hospitality, Juno has developed relationships with some of the country’s most exciting small producers – which means diners are lucky enough to have bottles and glass pours from the likes of Three Fates, A Thousand Gods and Halcyon Days. They always have something interesting to try by the glass, and there is always a story behind why that bottle is on the list. The fun is in asking what’s good and letting Juno share her love of wine with you.
The menu constantly evolves with the seasons and always seeks to reflect the world outside Margot’s snug interior. What is quite remarkable is how this menu always manages to reflect exactly how you are feeling, too.
It is not seasonality as a fad either. Tom cooks from a place of deep connection to the produce with which he is working. He knows when it’s time to retire an ingredient as it begins to lose its lustre and replace it with something in ascendency to its absolute best. Tom knows that to find the best produce available and to combine it with as few things as possible is to do justice to the beauty of what nature offers. This is not to say that anything that happens here is simple or without thought; to cook with such restraint is to truly understand the capability of what is on offer.
On the warm autumnal evening when I last visited, the menu was dappled with those final vestiges of summer, and the foundations were being laid for the months ahead.
To start a meal with a bowl of stracciatella, topped with fresh peach, olive oil, basil and almonds finely microplaned over it all, is to revel in the beauty and warmth of the summer just gone. It is the kind of dish that perfectly sums up Margot and the simplicity that makes Tom such an exceptional chef. To take a spoonful of the decadent velvet stracciatella with the crunch of a peach moments away from absolute ripeness is to experience contrast and coherence at once. The bite and slight acidity of that peach plays to the piquancy of olive oil, which is then garnished with a florality that basil can bring when used sparingly in this way.
Next comes sweetcorn, peppercorn butter, feta and dill. It is a dish that is at once all of the best things of summer, full of life and hope with sweetness and verdancy from corn and dill, but with deep warmth and luxuriousness from the peppercorn butter.
Then, beetroot, cashew cream, blackberry vinegar and watercress. Again, four components, and again, something as close to alchemy as you can get without being sent to the tower for heresy. I do not know how Tom makes the cashew cream that acts as a smoky, warm foundation for this dish, nor do I want the magic to be spoiled. The beetroot is arranged methodically on top, full of natural earthiness and spiked with that blackberry vinegar. It combines with the cashew cream and spicy watercress in a way that simultaneously reminds me of picking fruit on a warm evening and watching the fire on a cold winter’s night.
There was tarakihi, poached until pearlescent and resting in a butter sauce that made perfect use of the last of the bread. There was squash, roasted until sticky and grounded with a sage and walnut dressing.
This was just one meal at Margot, and these plates might not be there when you arrive. But that is OK. Whatever the season, Tom will have something exceptional to say through the plates he lovingly puts together for you, and Juno will have something new and delicious waiting for you behind the bar. Because this is what they do. This is what they have dedicated their lives to, and you can feel it in every last atom in the building.
