Matchbox

The Verdict

Walking into Matchbox, you might think the space looks eerily familiar. And that’s because it is. When Kamal Haggerty and Alejandro Vasquez took over the former Deadshot space they kept the bones exactly as they were. “It’s my dream fit out,” Haggerty explains. “I couldn’t in my wildest dreams pull this together without selling everything I own. And for it to be aged and patinated the way it is, and for it to be in this location. It’s everything.” 

But that is where any similarities between Deadshot and Matchbox end. This is not Deadshot 2.0. This is a singular concept from an immensely talented team who are bringing something genuinely invigorating to Auckland’s bar scene. 

The genesis of Matchbox started a year ago, when Haggerty left his last job and decided with the encouragement of his wife Jennifer that, after decades of helping bring other people’s ideas to fruition, it was time to go all in on his own project. When it came to deciding who to join forces with, a serendipitous introduction to Vasquez a few years back was the first thing that came to mind. “He was just like Uncle Sam, I want you,” Vasquez laughs, pointing a strong finger like the American motif has come to be known for. Business partners Daniel Crothers and Fendi Thien round out the team. 

It’s a partnership that works. Vasquez oversees the kitchen, where a simple menu of expertly executed tacos, croquettes, guacamole and esquites will be served up at all hours of the day. Yes, really—the kitchen will be fired up until the last hungry customers leave. “We want to create a culture of late eating,” Vasquez explains. “The kitchen closes when the bar closes, and we have a license until 2am.” Haggerty, meanwhile, wants to make it clear that Matchbox is “as much a place to eat at as it is a place to drink at.” 

Haggerty, with the support of Emmanuel and Ben behind the bar and Maria on front of house, has designed a drinks programme that is so much more than the sum of its parts. There’s clarification, rotary evaporation, ferments and more. Some of this takes place behind the scenes, and some of it sits in jars around the bar, quietly doing its thing. Already, there’s a pineapple wine that has been used liberally, a homemade malibu that will be ready to go in a few days, and an old fashioned that will, as Emmanuel says, “need a little bit of dilution”, a statement firmly proven by the small mouthful that knocked our absolute socks off. 

Unlike many modern bars though, prebatching only occurs to a point here. “Each drink still has a minimum of two steps to service,” Haggerty explains. That could mean blending, shaking, stirring, or straining. There’s also an element of closed loop production going on here, too. The Tropical Albedo, for example, uses a Brazilian lemonade which, instead of the traditional condensed milk, is made with caramelised and clarified whey produced as a byproduct of the cheese Vasquez and his team are making in the kitchen. Then there’s the Cafe Blanc—a “transparent espresso martini” as Haggerty describes it—where SL.OW’s Coconut Nougat coffee is put through the rotary evaporator so, as he explains, “you’ve got the aroma and the punch” without the viscosity. 

There’s also Kirin and Guinness on tap, a great selection of wines by the glass and, crucially, $10 glasses of house Champagne. Matchbox is cooking seriously good food and making seriously good drinks, but it isn’t taking itself too seriously. It is, at its core, a place to come and have fun, but be well fed and well watered while you do it. For both Vasquez and Haggerty, they want Matchbox to be exactly what people need it to be. Haggerty puts it best when he says; “Show me the things that you love, and we’ll give them to you.”

Image credit: Matchbox | Supplied