Nick Kavenagh on Tasmania, team culture and building Atlas and Vine

For Nick Kavenagh, Atlas and Vine is a restaurant he has been thinking about for years

After building his career across Australia and overseas, the chef is preparing to open his own restaurant on Liverpool Street in Hobart on August 19, bringing the technique and discipline of fine dining into a format he wants to feel considerably more relaxed.

“It’s about bringing that concept into a more casual experience, but still refined,” Nick said. “There’s not really anything set in stone, which I think is quite cool.”

Atlas and Vine will operate as a restaurant and wine bar, with both à la carte and set-menu options and a strong focus on Tasmanian produce, makers and wine.

For Nick, however, opening in Tasmania is not simply about access to ingredients. It is the opportunity to take what he has learned from years spent working in other people’s kitchens and decide how he believes a restaurant should operate.

Finding structure in kitchens

Nick describes himself as a rebellious kid who “didn’t really have my head switched on”.

Cooking was not initially part of the plan. He started a carpentry pre-apprenticeship, quickly realised it was not for him and used two free days each week to take a dishwashing job.

Six months later, he was offered an apprenticeship.

“I just kind of fell into it,” Nick said. “I think I needed the structure and I really liked the discipline of it.”

The creativity, physical nature of the work and possibility of travelling gradually pulled him further into the industry.

By his late teens he was working at qualia on Hamilton Island, where exposure to different restaurants, visiting chefs and major events started to expand his network and his idea of where cooking could take him.

Years of travelling and working in different kitchens followed, including time at Core by Clare Smyth in London and Vue de Monde in Melbourne, alongside restaurant openings overseas.

At Core, Nick remembers Clare asking what he considered his weakest section.

His answer was pastry, so he was put onto pastry.

It was challenging, but the experience reflected something that has followed him throughout his career: being placed in situations where he had to adapt quickly and learn from people who approached cooking differently.

Travelling also exposed him to teams made up of chefs from around the world.

“You learn to work in different ways,” he said.

Those experiences have informed Atlas and Vine, but so have the parts of restaurant culture Nick has decided he does not want to repeat.

Four Quarters and cooking in Tasmania

Nick was born in Brisbane but largely grew up in Melbourne around Brunswick, Fitzroy and Collingwood.

Tasmania had long been somewhere he visited on holidays and trips with friends, and opening a restaurant there gradually became an ambition.

“I kind of always promised myself, like, I want to open up a restaurant here,” he said. “You pretty much got everything at your feet in Hobart and Tasmania. I just never really thought it would actually happen.”

Since moving south, one of the things that has impressed him most is the relationship between chefs, growers and suppliers.

Nick arrived without an established Tasmanian supplier network, but found introductions quickly led to others.

If one producer cannot provide something, he says they will often point him towards someone who can.

“They all work together, they’re not trying to compete,” he said. “Everyone’s just working together, which is awesome.”

That local focus extends beyond the food.

The restaurant’s plates have been handmade by Kate Bowman using materials including abalone shell and recycled brick. Stuart Williams has produced stools for the venue and Matt Prince has made the tables, while Tasmanian oak, blackwood and huon pine feature through the fit-out.

“I feel like it needs more appreciation on what they actually offer,” Nick said of Tasmania.

The menu will be equally rooted in the state, but not locked into one style of cooking.

Nick describes Atlas as a reference to his travels and everything he has learned along the way, while Vine reflects the restaurant’s focus on wine.

Within that sits a concept he calls Four Quarters.

Every three months, the restaurant will shift its main point of inspiration between seafood, vegetables, fermentation and meat.

The opening quarter will focus on seafood, but that does not mean every dish will contain it. The quarter provides direction rather than imposing a rigid theme, while the menu itself will continue to change according to what producers can supply.

“The menu will change day-to-day,” Nick said.

Guests will be able to move between snacks, small plates, mains, sides and desserts designed largely for sharing, with both à la carte and set-menu options available.

“You can walk in and you can have a few snacks, or people can have a dinner, or people can have a set menu,” he said. “You’re not forced onto something.”

That flexibility also applies to technique.

For the fermentation quarter, Nick already has a native vinegar developing ahead of opening. It will ferment for around six months and may eventually appear as something as simple as part of a salad dressing.

“It’s not about everything fermented,” he said.

Instead, one or two fermented elements might sit within a dish to introduce a flavour guests are less familiar with without allowing the technique to dominate the plate.

‘You don’t need to be a hero’

Opening Atlas and Vine has given Nick the opportunity to decide what kind of kitchen he wants to run.

He has little interest in building a restaurant around chefs working 80-hour weeks simply because that was once accepted as part of the industry.

“You don’t need to do that anymore,” he said. “It’s just not sustainable.”

His thinking comes partly from looking back at his own experiences and considering which parts are worth carrying forward.

“You need to look back on how you got treated and not do things that you went home crying about.”

Nick also rejects the idea that a chef or owner needs to carry every part of the business themselves.

“You can’t do everything yourself. You don’t need to be a hero,” he said.

For him, ownership needs to extend beyond the person whose name is attached to the restaurant.

“The team is the team. It’s not just the chef. You need to give credit to your team, not just take all the credit.

Your team is what sets the tone. It’s what makes the venue.”

Atlas and Vine’s regular service will run from Wednesday to Saturday, with Nick also planning a fortnightly Sunday roast lunch.

Creating some separation from the traditional hospitality working week is deliberate.

“I really want the staff to have a work-life balance as much as I can, be happy and not really stress as much as hospitality can be,” he said.

The aim is not to remove the pressure and discipline that attracted him to kitchens in the first place. It is to create an environment where those things do not come at the expense of the people doing the work.

Building a restaurant of his own

If years in kitchens taught Nick about food, opening Atlas and Vine has taught him about everything surrounding it.

For the first time, he has been involved in designing a kitchen and dining room around his own operation, forcing him to think about details that rarely concern a chef during service.

His advice after months of planning is straightforward.

“Always measure your tables and your chairs.”

He has found himself thinking about the height of a bar, the distance between a guest’s knees and a table, the width of chairs and how people move through the room.

“It’s all these small details,” Nick said. “Certain things, if you miss, can really kind of ruin or annoy an experience.”

He is also quick to stress that the restaurant has not been built alone. Builders Lane Group and Taylor and Hinds Architects have supported the project, alongside the Tasmanian makers, producers and hospitality operators who have helped him establish connections in a city where he initially knew few suppliers.

It mirrors the philosophy he wants in the kitchen.

After spending his career travelling through different restaurants, countries and styles of cooking, Atlas and Vine gives Nick somewhere to bring those experiences together without recreating any one of them.

The menu, Four Quarters concept and produce will continue to evolve once guests begin coming through the door, and Nick is prepared for the restaurant itself to change with them.

As he puts it, opening your own place comes with a degree of uncertainty that no amount of experience can completely remove.

“It’s one of those things you don’t know until you try.”