Tony Robertson - Entrepreneurial Aussie and hospitality legend

No fancy hospitality school launched longtime Queenstown restaurateur Tony Robertson’s 45-year career. An entrepreneurial young Aussie, his big break came by chance over a few gins with legendary hotelier Eileen Todd, Tony eventually becoming one of the South Island’s most respected restaurateurs.

A surfer who grew up on Sydney’s northern beaches, Tony scored a job as a NSW Lands and Survey photographic darkroom technician, working part-time as projectionist at The Manly Silver Screen theatre. “On my first night solo, a mechanical glitch left me locked in with 600 disappointed, stoned surfers rioting in the aisles,” he grins.

In New Zealand, visiting his brother who was making surfboards in Gisborne, Tony discovered his new passion - skiing, kitted out in jeans, a lumber jacket and socks for gloves. He honed his skills in the Snowy Mountains before skiing a season in Queenstown, tenting and surfing on a Gisborne beach in summer before heading back to Coronet Peak.

“Funds were low, so I bluffed my way into hospitality working at Eichardt’s Pub until 11pm, then Albert’s Nightclub until 3am.”

He began basic ski instructing, taught the next year by director Weems Westfeldt before joining instructors like Wayne Café on a season in Taos, New Mexico.

Tony then honed his hospitality skills at Travelodge under local legends like Bruce Leitch, Roger Goddard and Chico Lanz.

Japanese instructor Aki Fujiwarra invited Tony to become one of the first foreign ski instructors to teach kids in Hokkai, Japan – an intense experience that changed his life, returning for another season.

He was then asked to run Harry Rankin’s Japanese ski tour SKEA Holidays and began a two-year Japanese course at Christchurch Polytech. By now he’d met future wife Jan Rae.

Back in Queenstown instructing for the school holidays, he and Eileen Todd hatched a plan “over a gin or two” for a Japanese restaurant.

“We were still without a chef two weeks before opening and I had to borrow crockery from Skyline as ours hadn’t arrived.” Minami Jujisei opened in 1986 – only the fourth Japanese restaurant in NZ.

It was a challenge, finding fresh fish suppliers, importing food and recruiting staff from Japan. “Immigration officials had no concept of skill sets for Japanese chefs.”

The 1987 sharemarket crash then hit and Minami almost folded. Tony did everything possible to keep afloat, including hosting after hours gambling nights in the Tatami rooms. Solo marketing trips to Japan and cheap lunches for visiting school groups paid off. “Luckily, we were saved when Sir Roy McKenzie, who’d flown with Eileen’s husband in WWII, loaned us money to get through.”

Minami moved to the old Mountaineer site where Bento Boxes for Japanese tour groups took off - $30,000 worth selling the first year, turning over $200,000 worth after a marketing trip to Japan. A chef worked all night, Tony collecting the boxes at 6am for delivery. “If I missed the coach to Milford, I’d be scrambling to find a pilot to fly them in or drive all that way, just for our reputation.”

In 1995 they opened Boardwalk Seafood Restaurant with head chef Grant, and wife Del Jackson on the new Steamer Wharf, the Robertson’s daughter Brie arriving just after. Flying in fresh Pacific Island fish, they sourced seven tonnes of live crayfish a year from Jackson’s Bay. “I’d fly to Jackson’s Bay in a Cessna with the seats taken out, laden with polystyrene boxes of crayfish, me jammed between the roof and boxes,” he says. Tony’s hosted the who’s who of politicians, pop and movie stars and directors but most memorable was cooking sukiyaki for Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and serving dinner to Bill Clinton whose 1999 visit was shrouded in secrecy.

“I knew an hour before and only told Grant. He was booked as the ‘chairman of Air NZ’.” New British waiter ‘Jacko’ was told to man the door for a ‘guy with special needs’. Jacko’s jaw just dropped when Clinton walked in,” laughs Tony. The local woman celebrating her 70th birthday was none too pleased when Clinton’s minders insisted on her prime reserved table, Tony apologising profusely. “I explained to Clinton who graciously went over and wished her Happy Birthday, making her night.”

In 2004 Tony strategically opened Hamills Restaurant in expanding Frankton with head chef/partner Mike Doran.

He’s served stints on the Queenstown Promotion Board, on Immigration advisory groups, was branch president of the Restaurant Association of NZ for five years, then South Island President of RANZ for another five, representing RANZ at the World Restaurant Convention in Chicago.

He and two young Hamills staff opened a 150-seat Nelson waterfront restaurant in 2012. Tony and life partner Yasuko (Yassy) semi-retired there in 2017, Tony now loving fishing and sailing.

He takes his chefs fishing weekly – the fish shared amongst the Filipino community. After all staff are the key to success: “Without them, and the people who’ve believed in my visions, none of this would have been possible. I’ve been incredibly lucky.”