The
Engine Room Eatery
Natalia Schamroth & Carl Koppenhagen
RRP: $70.00
Published: 19 October 2012
Hardack -Godwit
In 2006, in a vacant Post Office on
Auckland’s charming Northcote Point, Natalia Schamroth and Carl Koppenhagen
opened The Engine Room Eatery. Both were experienced chefs, but this was the
first restaurant they had opened together. They had long dreamt of the sort of
place it would be: an informal local eatery, where people would go on a regular
basis for food they craved. It would have a menu based on their extensive
travels, and while it was informal everything would be of superb quality.
In its first year of opening it was awarded Metro’s
Best New Restaurant and Best Local Restaurant. In its second, Metro’s
Supreme Winner and since opening has gone onto win Best Local/Upmarket Bistro
seven years in a row.
A dynamic duo, Natalia and Carl worked together in their
early chef careers at the well-known Metropole, in Parnell, and then at the
famous Reuben cafe in the Auckland Art Gallery where they were renowned for
innovative food, packed with flavour. For many years Natalia was one of Cuisine
magazine’s most popular food writers so it is no surprise when food-lovers
flocked to the North Shore to see what The Engine Room was all about.
The buzz around The Engine Room has remained strong and
it’s easy to see why, the food is fabulous, the wine list superb, the service
snappy and the entire experience exemplary. Simply put, it’s some of this
country’s best food.
Fans have wanted The Engine Room cookbook for years, and
now their wishes have finally been answered.
As the pair explain, ‘The Engine Room Eatery cookbook continues this belief in sharing
everything — our recipes, our approach, our inspiration and our journey. It
provides a glimpse into how our place works and what makes it work. For us The
Engine Room has always been about serving good damn honest food and cooking
with heart and soul’.
Wonderfully designed by Alt Group, the book includes
gorgeous black and white photography by Keiran Scott capturing the daily hum of
the restaurant and the inner workings of the kitchen. There are full-colour
food shots of over 100 of The Engine Room’s best recipes (see examples below) — the secrets that
have made it hard to get a table for the last seven years, and includes meals
that Carl cooks for staff dinners. I am sure this superb book will delight and inspire many and I have no doubt that may diners at The Engine Room will leave clutching a copy of the book.
Natalia and Carl were both born in Auckland, both attended
Auckland’s AUT Cooking School and are both hugely influenced in their cooking
by growing up in European-based home kitchens and by their extensive world
travels. Their parents, siblings, brothers and sisters are all great cooks, so
it seems it runs in the families.
Natalia spent many school holidays in Melbourne with her
maternal grandparents, self-made Polish Holocaust survivors who wanted only the
best for their daughters and grandchildren. They spent many hours cooking
together, discovering all sorts of exotic ingredients and eating out in
restaurants from an early age.
‘My two sisters and I loved cooking with Mum,’ shares
Natalia. ‘It was often our job to make the salad dressing for dinner, stand on
a chair and stir the orange Le Creuset pan full of butter and bread crumbs to
crisp perfection to serve on brussels sprouts. We never ate pre-packaged foods,
everything was homemade, Dad had a great vegetable garden and we would drive to
“the Country” on the weekends and stock up on vegetables that we didn’t grow,
coming home for a cook-up.’
Carl’s parents ran a Four Square in small town Northland,
where Carl enjoyed a country childhood. Carl’s father had migrated from Holland
and still craved European specialties, so the Four Square had a well-stocked
delicatessen counter, with pickled herrings, cured meats and lots of cheese.
Eventually the family moved back to Auckland and bought a
delicatessen on the North Shore. Carl worked in the deli after school where he
remembers the counter full of cheese, salami, prosciutto, olives, terrines,
pates etc. ‘There was a rotisserie full of chickens going round and round,
baskets full of baguettes and a cabinet full of all Mum’s home baking, pies,
cake, sandwiches as well as shelves stocked full of imported chocolates, oils,
vinegars, pasta etc.’
This, coupled with his Mother’s passion for cooking meant a natural
progression into food for Carl. While at
school he started working as a kitchen-hand and, like Natalia, became addicted
to the mad, passionate environment of a commercial kitchen. He has never looked
back.
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