DEAN WHITE
Kisa, Mr Go’s, Ombra
Dean White started 2016 with a love of good food and a tonne of ambition.
The born-and-bred Wellingtonian had been working in Auckland for most of that year, learning the restaurant ropes from the founders of Bird on a Wire and helping them to open their Ponsonby Central branch.
“The plan was to bring the concept to Wellington,” says Dean, who fell in love with the chicken-based eatery on a visit to Auckland.
But then plans changed and the founders decided to consolidate their brand in the upper North Island rather than heading south.
Dean headed home with plans to either find a job doing what he’d previously been doing (sales repping for a food company) or strike out on his own.
The latter won out. “All I’ve ever wanted to do since I was 16 was have my own restaurant,” says Dean, who started out working in Lower Hutt cafes as a student. When he headed to the University of Otago to do a commerce degree, the now 30-year- old ended up running front of
