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Iconic musician and foodie

Sharon Greally caught up with a Mt Victoria musician who changed the food scene in Wellington.

Alan Norman has lived in Mt Vic for nigh on forty years. “I love lots of things about Mt Vic – the community gardens, the green belt, I walk everywhere, and wander down to the beach, or the Freyburg. I just love it.”

Norman is known to many as the proprietor of what was The Victoria Café on the corner of Queen and Brougham streets, which was a huge part of the fabric of Mt Vic in its day.

Norman started his food journey working in London in the 80’s, in a vegetarian café called Food For Thought in Covent Garden. He married one of the cooks there and together they went on to open a successful eatery in Brighton.

Alan Norman

“But I wanted to come home, and so we came back to Wellington, to Mt Victoria. It was just at the end of the old school dining – La Normandie and such like, but Wellington was tired. Same old institutions. We got in just at the right time and opened The Victoria Café. It was a hit. Originally it was an old joinery, but then developers made it into a café, which didn’t last very long. Initially I was washing dishes for them, and I could see its potential, to do what we did in Brighton. We didn’t call it vegetarian, we called it a wholefood restaurant, and it just went nuts. We had live music, art exhibitions, regular entertainment, an open fire. It was over three levels, so quite big. I think we were one of the first places in Wellington to have an espresso machine. Sometimes the queue would snake down the road.And Clyde Quay School let us use their car parks for koha. It was great, and great for the community.”

“Regulars at The Victoria Café were Barry Saunders and Wayne Mason from The Warratahs, and they would often come in and enjoy their leek and potato soup, and the bread we used to make, and I was a real big fan of theirs. Little did I know that that fifteen years later I’d be playing in the band, and I’m still there! I was originally on keyboards, but over time I played more accordion, and it’s become a bigger part of The Warratahs sound now.”

The talented Norman plays plays percussion, accordion, guitar, drums, and piano, and he’s in a lot of bands – four currently.

He’s also known for another foody fixture in Mt Vic – Stamp and Go in Majoribanks St, where Tomboy is now, which he started with his brother Kit. “It was Caribbean food – wraps and baps. We had a really good jerk chicken. Kit developed the recipes in a scientific lab, so the recipes were very exact. We patented that recipe, because it was so popular, and we didn’t want anyone to copy it. Stamp and Go is actually a Caribbean term for takeaways sold at street stalls.Kit was also a chef, more of a food developer, and actually wrote the cook book Food For Thought. He just had a natural flair for food.We’d sell wine by the carafe. We sold really good rum as well. It ran for about six years. However I was taking more and more time off with The Warratahs, and it was just getting too difficult. Ran out of time, ran out of juice.It’s got its own history in the annals of Mt. Victoria eateries. David Burton came and visited us not long after we started. He gave us a really good review.”

Norman also worked for the Downtown Community Ministry for sixteen years pre Covid. This included putting together a ukulele group with some of the street kids. “We did shows and it was great as they’d make twenty bucks each, and felt part of something. I still see some of them around, and they call out and say hi.”

 

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NEWS BRIEFS – May

Caretaker’s cottage to go

The caretaker’s cottage at Victoria Bowling Club will soon be removed.

A condition of the club’s lease with Council, approved in 2022 was that the club-owned building should be removed at the club’s cost.

The Wellington City Council said that once removed, the area will be reinstated as green open space within the club’s leased area on the Town Belt.

The Mt Victoria Residents’ Association had asked the council whether the building could be reused for public toilets.  

However, the council said after looking into it, that due to the building’s location, the cost to retrofit it, and safety considerations, it was not considered a suitable option.

No thump from the bumpless hump

Alterations were made to a pedestrian crossing outside Clyde Quay School after noise concerns were raised by nearby residents.

The raised crossing had been installed last year to encourage drivers to slow down, but in recent months further work was carried out to make the hump less pronounced, by lengthening the approach to the raised section on both sides.

A parent of a student at Clyde Quay School who did not want to be named said he thought the original design was better in terms of safety: "If it's not as steep cars will continue to go fast."

A spokesperson for Wellington City Council said the work was “in response to an enquiry from a local building corp concerned with some noise associated with the gradient of the ramp.”

“Footpath and road maintenance in the area coincided with this work to ensure efficient use of traffic management while limiting impact on corridor users.”

Walk this way

An example of a ‘hotspot’ where cyclists and walkers can collide. 

An example of a ‘hotspot’ where cyclists and walkers can collide.  

Three sections of track on Matairangi-Mt Victoria may be designated ‘walking only’ following a review of safety on the maunga.

The Wellington City Council set up a process to look at establishing walking only tracks in 2022 following concerns about clashes between walkers and cyclists, and safety issues with downhill mountain bikers cutting across tracks.

As a result of discussions and analysis council staff identified 15 ‘hotspots’ and made recommendations for each, ranging  from closing the track, to changing the designation or making other safety improvements such as better signage.

The 15 safety improvements put forward include three changes to make sections of tracks ‘walk only’, one to designate a section ‘uphill biking only’ and one to close an unnamed track.

Council staff have shared the recommendations with their working groups and are now aiming to deliver a Council Committee paper in June 2026, which will have an opportunity for oral submissions.

Collision on Austin Street

Wet weather led to a collision on Austin Street in April.

According to a police officer at the scene, a car heading up Queen Street hit a car on Austin St.  The car that was hit ended up swerving into a tree on Austin Street.  No one was hurt.

 
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