Taste of Success
If you've been at a catered function recently and tasted fine
food, there's a good chance it came from Susan Fleischl's kitchen.
Geraldine Johns reports on the caterer who's cooking up a
storm.
Something certainly smells good in the kitchen. The tarts are
filled, the mustards are made, the pastries are baking and the
biscuits are ready to come out of the oven. It can't be a bad life
when you come to work and are greeted by such intoxicating
aromas.
There is another scent apparent here: the sweet smell of
success. This is the workplace of Susan Fleischl: caterer to the
rich, the famous and the yet-to-be discovered. Today is a quiet
day. There is a funeral for 300 to prepare for; there are two large
lunches to do and two cocktail parties tonight. Tomorrow she'll see
five lunches and two dinners head out of her swish new premises in
Newton, Auckland.
Fleischl caters weddings, parties - just about anything. And let
us not forget her regular corporate clients: the large bunch of
lawyers, the inhabitants of an inner-city tower block, the forestry
giants and so on. You snacked in the Koru Club today? Those are her
biscuits you munched on. They're made here on site, as is
everything else. You're a guest on board an America's Cup corporate
host charter boat? That's Fleischl's food you're fuelling on.
Fleischl has truly come full circle to get where she is now. She
travelled the world in various chef and catering capacities before
she came home to New Zealand and started on the path that now sees
her as sole owner of the Great Catering Company. She employs seven
full-time chefs, four full-time kitchen hands, three office
administrators and five temps, who may as well be full-time at this
time of year.
This is the Napier schoolgirl who declared to her dad at age 17
that she wanted to be a chef. "Right," he said, "if you're going to
do it, you better do it properly." So he sent forth letters to
various European hotels seeking a kitchen placement for his
daughter.
The only place that responded was the Savoy in London. So she
left Colenso High School and headed straight there. It was a
symbiotic relationship: Fleischl received two years of great
classical training and the Savoy got its pound's worth of cheap
colonial labour. She learned a lot - most significantly: "it showed
me how not to treat staff".
Another relationship also had its beginnings at the Savoy. It
was there that Fleischl met chef Dietmar Sawyere - who she would
later wed. (Sawyere has distinguished himself as a chef of abundant
talent at some top Auckland addresses during two stints here; he is
now in charge at Sydney's prestigious Forty One restaurant). The
couple, who are no longer together, have a daughter, Dominique.
Fleischl came home after two years in London to a restaurant
scene that was beginning to blossom in central Auckland. It was in
the days of cheap champagne, when the places to go were the Bronze
Goat and Orsinis - both of which she worked at.
"It was great - good healthy competition, a fun time," she says.
Then there were stints with Sawyere in Hong Kong, Bangkok and
Sydney. Fleischl started experimenting and playing with dishes
while her husband went to work. She says she always thought
catering was a dirty word. But that is where she turned when her
marriage ended and she moved to Melbourne with Dominique, then two.
"I always thought catering meant mass-produced, soggy sandwiches.
But it didn't."
That was the beginning of a seven-year freelance catering career
that only ended when she came home. And started all over again.
Fleischl was a solo mum renting a house in Sandringham in 1995. She
started picking up work after catering for a friend's wedding and
at the start, facilities were fairly basic.
"I got a little stainless steel bench and put it in the lounge.
I rang Student Job Search and hired some students to make the
sandwiches. And I used the neighbour's garage as a cool room." (A
retired butcher, he had an underground cellar designed for such
uses.)
It's all about timing, says Fleischl, who believes her business
began to grow by word of mouth. Soon the house was too small and
she moved operations to a Sandringham shop. Then the business got
bigger again and she expanded into the place next door. Last month
she moved to Newton, where the premises are half as big again. The
business has grown 50% in the past year.
Her clients will go to great lengths to secure her services.
Fleischl has been flown to Queenstown to cater for a wedding and
has travelled elsewhere around the country to ply her kitchen
skills at private functions.
She says she's quite happy with things the way they are. If she
were to change direction, it might be so she can write a book.
It would be about weddings, which she loves. She caters for up
to three in a day. "I'm going to write a story about brides and
their dramas." The wealthier the client, the harder their demands,
she observes.
Then there are the cheats. They're the ones who ring up and ask
her to cook up something that can pass as something they've
prepared at home themselves for a forthcoming dinner party. (She
may or may not oblige).
Only her brother can get away with ringing her up and inviting
her to a function before adding: "oh by the way, can you bring some
food?"
Fleischl has remained sole owner of her company. "It can be
pretty tough for a woman in business. People are always asking,
Owho's your business partner?' I don't have one." She does,
however, say you can't do a sole business without a good support
person and she has one in partner Anthony Grayson - a banker. The
key to keeping the business good, says Fleischl, lies largely in
the staff, whom she praises greatly. "People call this the home for
lost chefs. People come here who are returning from overseas or who
are between jobs." And she's seen her share of great names go
through: Michael Meredith (Vinnies) Simon Wright (the French Cafe)
and Alastair Parker (formerly of O'Connell St Bistro).
Despite the success of this venture, Fleischl has not forgotten
its roots. Standing in the kitchen of her new premises is that
original stainless steel bench.
And Fleischl has not lost her love for food and cooking. Tonight
she will go home and cook dinner with Dominique. "Cooking is still
a relaxation. I try and get in the kitchen once a day because I
just love getting my hands in the dough."
top...
|