Report on experience

To Tauranga on Sunday, to take my mother out for lunch. We usually go to The Bridge, a restaurant over the bridge by the marina. I was told it has a new owner – Phil Judd. Wonderful. I could imagine Phil wandering about the floor, playing his mandolin and crooning old Split Enz songs. But I had been misinformed – the new owner is Phil Rudd, the drummer in AC/DC, who has lived in Tauranga for the last 28 years.

The Bay of Plenty Times enthuses: “Tauranga joins London, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles for being a town you will fly to just to eat.”

Rudd says:

“I love Tauranga because it’s got everything you need within reach. I can go out on my launch, moor it, have a shower, drive home and my hair is still wet. I can drive back out to the hangar to take my helicopter to run the Lambo on the track. The sun shines. The people here accept you. People are not over-awed by success. I like that, it’s cool here. I don’t know anywhere else in the world like that. [. . .]

“The most important thing for me is that the restaurant feels right. It doesn't have a music theme but a music smell.”

To me, “a music smell” means beer-soaked carpet and residual nicotine the morning after a gig loading up the gear – fortunately Phil’s Place, for that is the new name, does not smell like that at all. Apart from the terrible name, it is rather good. The food and service are fine, you can see the harbour, the Mount and the city. I always find that Tauranga is improved by a bit of distance.