Take a passionate chef, add the freshest local ingredients, slow cook in Wellington eateries for two decades and you’ll end up with the award-winning chef, restaurateur, Listener columnist and cookbook author, Martin Bosley.

Perched on arguably the best seafront site in Wellington, Martin Bosley’s Yacht Club Restaurant has long been a magnet for anyone passionate about good food and wine. In 2007, it beat more than 160 national entrants to be named the Supreme Award winner of Cuisine Magazine’s Restaurant of the Year.

Which is as it should be for someone who decided at the tender age of nine that he wanted to be a chef.

“My parents dined out all the time and as kids, my sister and brother and I often accompanied them to the various restaurants they visited,” says Martin.

The Kapiti Coast resident can also clearly recall his parents hosting weekend lunch and dinner parties, where they served food that was largely influenced by their subscription to Cordon Bleu magazine.
“Every month, when a new issue arrived, they would cook every recipe in it so I knew the difference between a Profiterole and an Éclair by the time I was 13! Other times, my father would lock himself in the kitchen on a Sunday and just cook; the men in my family have always cooked.”

Along with his wife Julia, Martin opened his first restaurant at age 21 -  Giverny, in Upper Willis Street – which was followed by stints at Brasserie Flipp, Auckland’s Ramses Restaurant, and three years in Port Douglas. He and business partner Gavin Bradley hit upon the idea of creating a seafood-based restaurant that offered “New Zealand's most unique dining experience”, and so was born his eponymous restaurant.

The key lesson that Martin has learnt along the way is to stay true to his foodie philosophy.

“Eat what’s in season, eat what’s local and eat what’s fresh. Food should please the eye as well as the palate, and dining is a social event, not just a culinary one.”