Hospo Hints: Sam Low

Q: Hello Sam, for the very small number of people that don't know who you are could you explain who you are why people know you, what you've been doing lately?

Sam: Of course! Hi, my name is Sam Low. I am of Chinese descent. I was born in Fiji and I was raised up here in Tāmaki. I spent half of my twenties living in Vancouver and Melbourne and spent a majority of my professional career in the coffee industry. Basically in the last two to three years, I made the jump into food media as it's something that I've always been really, really passionate about, and recently I won New Zealand Master Chef. Other things that people might know me for is going viral for replating food during hotel quarantine during COVID. Yeah, I think that's kind of pretty much it.

Q: Just a couple things then! When was your time in Melbourne and what were you doing at the time in your career?

Sam: I've been in Melbourne twice, so two years at a time. First time was in 2014 till 2016. During 2016 and second time in Melbourne was in 2018 to 2020. I was a coffee trainer for a coffee company, Code Black. Shout out to Code Black Coffee <laugh>. I was working as a coffee trainer for their 8 to 11 shops, and in my spare time I would just cook food and upload it on social media.?I was documenting my food journey for a very, very long time as a side passion project.

Q: When you were doing your food passion projects, what was kind of the theme?

Sam: During my, and it sounds so cliche - quarter to life crisis - from like 24 to 25, I was just kind of known to be the coffee guy and I wasn't really living my truth. So then I was trying to figure out my own cultural identity and pursuing food at the age of 26 after I achieved the biggest goal in coffee which was to win the National Barista Championship title. I found that pursuing and understanding Chinese gastronomy didn't just mean that I was learning about heritage?and upbringing, but it allowed me to understand my family more and my parents and the way that they communicated to me. It also taught me a lot about food hierarchy, it taught me about how a lot of these ideas and notions were fed onto us through just food media. For example in the coffee industry people will look at “specialty” only in order to have value, and it's the same thing in the food world. Like at one point fine dining was the ultimate, but now actually people are going back to casual and people are going back to more meaningful experiences and redefining what “special” is.

Q: It does appear the movement towards comfortable, casual, “cheap” eats has gained popularity over fine dining

Sam: I still love [fine dining].

Q: I do too! But what do you think has led to a decline of fine dining and the rise of casual? Do you believe it’s monetary? Do you think it's cultural? Is it a new dining generation coming up?

Sam: This is actually something I think about quite a lot, and quite often. I think there's many, many answers to this one, one being I guess the rise of cost of living, the perception of what you do with your money. I think we would all have some kind of guilt if we Instagram a private jet ride to a remote island, right? Like we have the sense of guilt that we probably shouldn't be doing this. So I think there's that kind of mentality, but also, so much of it going back to experience and people don't tend to show the same intensity of joy when they experience fine dining because so much of it requires pre-education. Fine dining appears to be built for a certain type of clientele, even though that might not be true.

Q: Do you think that's a perception or an actual experience? If you go to a fine dining restaurant, do you feel like you have to push through a layer of uncomfortability? Or do you feel like people believe that that's what they're gonna experience and it’s stopping them from going in?

Sam: Yeah, I think both, you know, I think now I still act like a basic bitch. <laugh> Yes. You know, I'm, I'm rowdy. I joke with the staff. I talk super casual in a fine dining restaurant because I know it and I’m comfortable. I think in the beginning, definitely, like the first dining experiences if felt I had to like sit a certain way or my napkin had to be on my lap, but now I’m comfortable acting however I want as long as I'm not effecting the experience for the waiters and the chefs from delivering their dining narrative.

Q: What's been your favourite fine dining restaurant experience in New Zealand?

Sam: I had a degustation at Amisfield when we were competing in Master Chef in Queenstown as kind of like a reward for the top eight. It was thought provoking but more importantly there was a focus on making the diner feel good. I think a lot of times fine dining, it's all about flavour and, and thought provoking food, but sometimes you just wanna feel good. What I mean by that is knowing how much your body should eat of a certain dish component. Like you don't want a cream sauce and then served with a cheese course followed by?a chocolate course after ‘cause that's just heavy and heavy and heavy.

The story behind every dish was amazing but I would say the most memorable and probably my first most significant fine dining experience was the French Cafe back in 2008. I’d never felt more cared for.

Q: Do you have any predictions where New Zealand hospitality trends are going? Are you noticing certain food categories rising in popularity?

Sam: I think if we look at what's happening outside of fine dining and what's happening with casual dining Melbourne is a good example of what's happening. It's young hungry chefs who are being funded or sponsored?and their?hospitality concepts involve their lived experiences and identity. Time Out just mentioned the top restaurant this year to be Serai which is modern Filipino. I think we'll see more modern and contemporary interpretations within, I guess, more niche regional identities. That goes back to what I did and I am doing, assimilation,?building off lived?experiences.

When you sell such a genuine narrative you actually can't go wrong. As in you will never find another restaurant doing "that'' better, you are "that '', it's a culmination of your culture and lived experience. For example?there's a modern Burmese restaurant in Wellington, Mabel's and I think they're doing some incredible food. I think more of that will come. There's gems popping up here and there and that's worth encouraging. Genuine stories are appreciated by Kiwi diners, we want to support each other and support local.

Q: Have you opened a hospitality business before? Or do you plan to in the future?

Sam: Yes, I was 21 when I opened up Bump Coffee Brewers, which became the site for Camper Coffee in Newmarket. It used to be a Cantonese restaurant and at the back was this tiny little shed, and that's where they kept all the storage for food. I saved up like 10 grand in my bank account 'cause I was staying with my family and I was just like a young dumb keen, eager barista that just wanted to open up a little hole in the wall.

Q: What lessons did you learn as a business owner? Would you have changed anything upon reflection, or nothing at all?

I was inspired by Melbourne and especially Patricia Coffee Brewers. I lasted eight months before I had this itch to just travel and I met Lee who took over the site and turned it into camper coffee and now it's this amazing empire.?I was 21 and I was young and hungry at the time, and I didn't have a lot of money. I just kept looking at numbers every day. Patience was something that I didn't really have then. Also realising that this concept was relatively new. I was probably the second hole in the wall to ever open in Auckland, just selling coffee and pour overs and nothing else. If anything, it taught me that the idea was right but I needed to understand timing. I still think if I’d kept on working Bump it would have been very successful.

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