Lake House Cafe Welcomes New Chef

There is a new face behind the cafe counter at Lake House Arts Centre.  We bid a fond farewell to Grant Kitchen and “Chef at the Lake House”, and welcome Jan Gardner, chef extraordinaire who takes over at “Lake House Cafe”.

Jan's culinary adventure began with 18 months spent studying at the Californian Culinary Academy in San Francisco. After graduation, Jan worked at several cutting edge restaurants in 'The Bay' area of San Francisco including Wolfgang Puck's famed Postrio.

Jan then opened The Moa Room - a neighbourhood restaurant in San Fran's eclectic Mission District. The menu was based on borderless cuisine - an amalgamation of Jan's food interests, travels and the vast array of produce available in The Mission. She was one of the first restaurants to offer New Zealand wines.

Upon her return to New Zealand with her family, Jan wrote food articles for House and Garden, taught cooking classes, wrote a soup cookbook. ran a catering company and appeared several times on Kim Hill's Saturday Morning.  She then opened Meola Kitchen in Westmere. The menu reflected her love of baking with a cult following developing for her rhubarb and lemon curd brioche, date and orange scones and handmade puff pastry apple turnovers. The menu also reflected her years in San Francisco with tacos and the extremely popular breakfast burrito. She operated Meola for eight years, garnering a reputation for great food and coffee and appearing in Metro's Top 50 eight times.  

Lake House Cafe winter opening hours are now 8:30am – 3pm Tuesday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm (not open Monday).  

All enquiries for reserving table bookings at Lake House Cafe, for after hours private art-themed functions and for catering for any events contact venue@lakehousearts.org.nz or (09) 486 4877.

 


Issue 79 August 2017