Page 22 - foodservice news - July 2018
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DINING
I don’t think anyone ever fully knows what they’re signing themselves up for.” He recalls being an employee and simply throwing out whole desserts if they weren’t up to snuff. Now, he sees every dollar and cent.
Saga currently employs one full-time pastry chef, another on savoury and a casual in the kitchen, plus floor-staff and Howes, who manages pretty much everything. “As a business owner, I’d say we’re just right with staff,” he says tongue-in-cheek. “The reality? We need more staff, but I’m still paying off loans and equipment. In hindsight, I wished I saved more money before I started a business, but you live and learn.” By his own admission, letting go is the biggest hurdle he now faces. “I’d love to get to a point that I’m not here as much, but I’m renowned for being too involved.”
Still, Bowden feels a huge sense of achievement and freedom, and one-and-half years deep, Saga is thriving, with veiled whispers of expansion. “I always said, as long as we’re not a first-year statistic,
I don’t care,” he recalls. It’s hard to imagine him carrying that fear, given the reputation he’d built. The hype leading up to Saga’s opening was nothing short of mega. Bowden was more sceptical.
Clockwise from left: The Saga dining room; the ‘Alex B’ sandwich with maize and herb-crusted eggplant schnitzel, parmesan custard, passata, basil, and melted mozzarella; and potato latkes with house-cured king salmon, crème fraîche, fennel,
soft herbs, and finger lime.
“I don’t know how much people actually like dessert or they just want to post on Instagram.”
Has there ever been confusion about Saga’s part-savoury identity, I ask? “No, some come for sandwiches, others just for dessert.”
A number of bakeries straddle that sweet-savoury line, pulling revenue from multiple crowds, but Saga teases it out further, with plates of breakfast fried rice, corn pudding with Pecorino and poached egg, and a compendium of loaded sandwiches, with Bowden’s mastery in savoury rivalling those in sweet.
The only thing customers “crack a shit over” is when he takes something off the menu, says Bowden. It’s the ‘signature’ scourge a number of chefs complain about and at Saga, they are numerous, including turnovers, sticky buns and mini cakes. “I often whinge about places that don’t change their menu and saw I was falling into that category. We’ll see how we go.” Bowden has just pulled two beloved dishes and I dare say he won’t reinstate them, regardless the fan demand. He’s dances to his own tune, or recipe – and that, really, is what makes him so good.


































































































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