John Key always welcome, Helen Clark never

Just because you’re Prime Minister, it doesn’t mean the welcome mat is always laid out for you.
Acclaimed Swiss chef Dietmar Sawyere (ex-Five City Road and Top of the Town in Auckland) once made a name for himself in Sydney because he turned away then-Australian PM Paul Keating from his swanky restaurant Forty One in Chifley Square.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know, or even didn’t like Keating, Sawyere later explained. The fact of the matter was, Keating didn’t have a booking. Other people had made a reservation months in advance, Sawyere said, and he wasn’t going to bump anybody in favour of a random — no matter who that random might be.
I admired that about Dietmar. I could see where he was coming from. But I had a more proactive stance, at least as far as seeing politicos off the premises went. I turned them away before they could turn up. I banned them in advance.
Helen Clark was one of the banned when she was Prime Minister. She was simply not welcome. When David Cunliffe ran for the leadership of the Labour Party, I let it be known that he’d get short shrift too. (Fortunately, he was spared that ignominy.)
I also flatly refused to accept a booking from Kim Dotcom when he tried to get a table. In his case it wasn’t just his personality or political persuasions that put me off. We were never a bring- your-own restaurant, and he had the effrontery to demand he bring his own couch. Can you see me moving my furniture to make way for a couch? A couch! For that man?
I never regretted the stance I took. In fact, it probably won me more fans than foes. An example: I was in the Chinese fruit shop a few days after the Dotcom story broke, and this woman — a complete stranger — goes, “I’m so excited that you got rid of that big, fat man.”
I told her she could come to my place anytime.
Some PMs were given a smooth ride. John Key and his wife, Bronagh, were welcome regulars when he was an MP — a habit that continued when he assumed Prime Ministerial status. Antoine’s was like his local — he and Bronagh lived within walking distance of Number 333 Parnell Road, although once he got the big chair in Parliament, they had to come by Crown car, with members of the Diplomatic Service at their side. On those occasions, we had to reduce the number of other guests to give him and his entourage sufficient room and privacy. But he always gave us plenty of notice, so nobody was denied their due right to dine on the night.
Let me also add that the Rt Hon Sir John Phillip Key GNZM AC was one of my favourite customers. As a matter of fact, another former New Zealand Prime Minister recently told me that the National Party viewed Antoine’s as their Auckland headquarters.
It was their safe haven, I was told. Again, it wasn’t just the food they were there for; it was our culture of discretion.
A massively abbreviated chapter taken from the new memoir Let Them Eat Tripe by Geraldine Johns (Bateman, $35), an as-told-to memoir of Tony Astle, a former restauranteur who owned Antoine’s in Parnell, Auckland.