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Date established:

1859

The Matterhorn, outside area

The Matterhorn, 106 Cuba Street, Wellington. The outside area at the Matterhorn, warmed with an open fire and surrounding heaters, is a popular area for socialising and enjoying the extensive drinks menu.

Credit:

Amy Donald, 2009

tags:

dining

The Matterhorn, outside area

The Matterhorn

The Matterhorn, 106 Cuba St, Wellington.

The Matterhorn

The Matterhorn was established in 1963 by two Swiss brothers. It was one of the first continental coffee lounges in Wellington and quickly became a local institution. The original character included authentic Swiss maids in full outfits and a menu of strong filter coffee, club sandwiches, asparagus rolls, stroganoff, sausages and sauerkraut, mince on toast, Swiss pasteries and rolled pancakes with lashings of cream.

Matterhorn exerts a nostalgic pull on older Wellingtonians. On Saturdays it was the perfect place to stop off with the kids or grandchildren after a visit to the shops, with queues sometimes stretching down the corridor and onto Cuba Street. The business was sold in the 1970s to another Swiss, George Stuck. As an amateur cameraman, Stuck filmed every moment he could of the daily happenings and a copy of his Super-8 film ‘A day in the life at Matterhorn’ is available at the NZ Film Archive.

In the early 1980s Matterhorn was sold to a Polish family, the Lepionkas, who introduced the much-loved lamington. It was sold again in 1995 to a Greek family but unfortunately faded from the spotlight during this time. The Matterhorn was saved in 1996 by Allistar Cox, who joined with Leon Surynt and Tim Ward to transform the place into the country's first boutique cocktail bar.

Matterhorn successfully mixed good food, beverages and music to once again become a Wellington institution. It hosted the first ever outing of the band that was to become Fat Freddy's Drop. A couple of years later the famous Fat Freddy's album Live at Matterhorn was recorded here.

In April 2002 the Matterhorn underwent a major renovation. The original restaurant was considerably smaller than it is today. At the entrance the ‘Matterhorn coffees and teas’ light box is an original found about 10 years ago in a junk shop on Karangahape Road in Auckland. Within the restaurant, the only things that remain from before the renovation are the two large trees in the garden. The Matterhorn has evolved into a refined eating house with a specialist cocktail bar and a modernist style that plays homage to the institution's origins.

Credit:

Amy Donald, 2009

tags:

dining

Early espresso machine

An early espresso machine at Cafe L'Affare on College Street, Wellington.

Espresso Machines

Espresso machines were commonplace in Italy before the Second World War but did not arrive in Wellington until the 1950s.

The first to appear were similar to the machines patented by Luigi Bezzara in 1901 and worked on the unsatisfactory principle of forcing boiling water and steam through the coffee and into the cup. They featured a tall cylinder boiling chamber which had to be of a substantial size to create the required pressure. Excess pressure could cause a blow out, or in extreme cases, a boiler explosion.

This machine was followed by a hand-operated (and later electronically powered) piston that created a far higher pressure while the water was held just below boiling point. Created in 1938 by the Italian company, Cremosi, it revolutionised the process of espresso making. It ensured that the superheated water would not burn the coffee and produce a bitter brew.

In 1946 Achille Gaggia marketed the first espresso machine to draw hot water from the bottom of the boiler, thus excluding steam. Many of the first wave coffee bar owners bought these machines. They operated with a lever, like an old fashioned beer pump, which was pulled down to draw water from the boiler, then released to activate a spring. The spring drove a piston downwards, forcing the water through the ground coffee at a pressure of about 60lb per square inch, ensuring that all the properties of the coffee were extracted.

These machines introduced Wellingtonians to espresso. But the machines were somewhat unreliable and the parts became almost impossible to obtain when the Labour Government's ‘black budget' of 1958 increased import restrictions. During this time simpler styles of coffee (such as Cona) took the place of espresso. One by one these huge coffee machines began to disappear, along with the coffee bars themselves.

A resurgence of cafes in Britain and Europe in the 1980s inspired a new generation of commercial espresso machines controlled by a microchip and the press of a button. This time round there was no problem with import restrictions although the machines did cost from $4000 to $15,000 each.

Credit:

Amy Donald, 2009

tags:

Tea, coffee and cocoa

Kenneth Magill poster: tea, coffee and cocoa, early 1930s.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: C-105-015
Magill, kenneth, 1910-2000
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

tags:

Blackball Workingmen's Club

The Blackball Workingmen's Club in 2008.

More than 50 years after its formation, the Blackball WMC acts as a de facto community centre, and in 2008 it hosted meetings to celebrate the centenary of the 1908 Blackball Miners Strike. Note that the title still includes MSA – Mutual Society of Arts – although the reason for this has long since been forgotten.

Credit:

Image courtesy of Te Ara

tags:

Drinking in the Denniston Hotel, 1945

Four men and a dog in the Denniston Hotel on the West Coast. The original caption read, 'Some find their recreation in the pubs where beer is the staple drink'.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Photographer: John Dobree Pascoe
Reference: 1/4-001245-F
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

tags:

alcohol