Point Chevalier has never been short of places to get breakfast. Somewhere to settle in for the evening has been harder to find. From Friday 23 October, the suburb has Wilko’s.
This bar, dining room and courtyard, at 157 Point Chevalier Road, is defining what a ‘Supper House’ is, building on the old English idea of supper and brought to life by owners who have spent their working lives in hospitality.
The name was around long before the building. Wilko is the nickname James Wilkinson’s mates have called him since his rugby days in England, and it stuck so firmly that a night at James’s place became “going to Wilko’s for dinner”
. When it came time to name the venue, it seemed the obvious choice. The supper house has childhood origins too. “Supper’s what we called going round to a mate’s for dinner,” says James.
“There’s no cuisine to it. Your mate’s mum could cook a pizza, or chicken and chips. Someone cooks, everyone sits round the table, and nobody’s in a hurry to leave. Wilko’s is going to be that, but with a proper kitchen behind it.
For James, that idea is already a familiar part of life. He regularly hosts dinner parties at home, bringing friends together over good food, wine and long evenings around the table. Wilko’s is, in many ways, an extension of what he’s always loved doing. As James puts it, going out for dinner usually means dressing up and heading into town. Coming round for supper means walking down the road in whatever you had on and finding two of your mates already at the bar.
Hence the label of a ‘Supper House’, an eatery and drinking establishment with a different mindset from the usual ‘restaurant & bar’.
From Yorkshire to Point Chev. James started cooking at 16 and spent nearly ten years in North Yorkshire, learning his craft at the Feversham Arms in Helmsley before moving to the Michelin-starred Black Swan in Oldstead, where the lessons went deeper into where food comes from and why it’s cooked the way it is. He later made the move to New Zealand, where his career has included executive chef at Collective Hospitality, navigating the challenges of COVID, and general manager of Glasshouse.
“I learned how to cook. I learned how to be creative. I learned how to run a business,” says James. “Then I just had to open one.”
Joining him as a co-owner is Gareth Weaver. The two met through hospitality circles, and Gareth has spent years running front of house in higher-end restaurants, where service is the entire point.
Between the owners, there are more years of hospitality than any of them would admit to counting. Wilko’s brings those years together under one roof, with the freedom to create something entirely their own.
Technique on simple plates. James calls the food that Wilko’s will serve European fusion. The base is Anglo-French, which he’ll tell you amounts to the same thing: English cooking, in his view, is mostly the English having a go at French recipes. Then the Indian, Thai and a bit of everywhere influences have crept in on top.
“There’s going to be a lot of technique thrown at things that look quite simple on a plate,” he says.. On the opening menu, that means a duck skewer that runs the whole bird, breast, heart, liver and leg, threaded with cherries, glazed, and cut with a sharp coriander gel. Lamb sweetbreads are marinated in tikka spices and fried until they eat like the best nuggets you’ve had, with a proper mint chutney and yoghurt.
What Wilko’s won’t have is a signature dish. Hero dishes are earned, James says, by cooking something every day for years until the regulars won’t let you take it off. Wilko’s hasn’t had those years yet, so it will run a menu that heroes will come from instead: everything on it is good from start to finish, and anything that isn’t, comes off.
“So ask me again in four years.”
Sunday, properly. Sunday lunch is where Wilko’s wants to make its name first: big cuts carved for the table, all the sharing sides, bottles of wine going round, and a table for twelve at the centre of the dining room. Every good local in England, James says, has a table that turns up every Sunday. It’s that same tradition he wants to bring to Wilko’s, where Sunday lunch is less about rushing through a meal and more about gathering around the table with family and friends.
At the bar, Guinness is poured as an imperial pint. The wine list was built by the owners in three tiers, from easy-drinking to serious, with a Coravin so the serious boles can be poured by the glass.
Cocktails are made fresh with nothing batched, and while the house list is staying under wraps until opening, the classics are there for anyone who asks. There’s also a big bottle of Lion Red waiting in the fridge, for anyone who feels like a classic.
The blue building .The building in its previous life had the famous blue paint job. What stands there now is a colour scheme that is far easier on the eye. Newly plastered walls in warm stone, tiled floors, polished timber and French doors are set across a bar, dining room and courtyard. Not to mention the golden light that will come from
the view of the sun setting in the west. “We’ve spent a lot of time in the Med,” James admits, area of the world with a vibe that we love.”
Locals first. The local connection maers just as much as what comes out of the kitchen, and it’s already under way.The first to join the Wilko’s team live just around the corner, and their extended families are already talking to other local families.
“That spiderweb’s already starting to weave itself into the community, which is exciting,” says James. The service standard comes from the owners’ own best nights out.
At Wilko’s, the first time you walk in, someone makes time for you. By the fourth visit, your pint will no doubt be poured before you reach the bar. “When the food’s good, the service is great and you’re enjoying yourself, you don’t really want to leave,” says James. “That’s exactly how we want people to feel at Wilko’s.”
And when asked to finish the sentence, “Wilko’s is where you go when…” James doesn’t take long to answer. “When you’ve got nowhere else to be.
WILKO'S, 157 Point Chevalier Road, T: 09 281 4949, www.wilkos.co.nz
