Hot sauce cranks up the heat in Wellington

October 5, 2017

Visa Wellington On a Plate has finished for another year – phew. But don’t let your stomach shrink back to a normal size just yet – there's still plenty of opportunities to cram in a bit more eating.

QT Museum Wellington have been working away behind the scenes for yonks and we’ve finally unveiled our hot new Asian eating house and bar, Hot Sauce.

The new bar is the metaphorical cherry on top of the hotel’s swish refit, offering street food and impressive cocktails to complement the French fine dining on offer at Hippopotamus upstairs.

Hot Sauce approaches Asian street food with a contemporary twist – its main inspirations are the kind of fare you’d find in Vietnam, Japan, Korea and Thailand, but with a bit of typical QT refinement added.

The spot’s signature is adventurous cocktails showcasing Asian ingredients that might not be familiar to every diner. The team gave taken classics like the Old Fashioned and added sweet seaweed – you really need to try it to imagine. The ‘Ello Vera cocktail – love a good food pun – is another refreshing little concoction featuring toasted rice syrup. The tasty cocktails are necessary to cool your mouth down after the array of umami and spicy food on offer.

Wylie Dean, the restaurant’s head chef, has worked at some of the world’s most exciting restaurants. Film buffs and sushi fiends will be delighted to hear he’s even worked under sashimi celeb Jiro of Jiro Dreams of Sushi fame.

“One of my highlights of working in Japan was spending three months in Jiro Ono’s kitchen. I watched his techniques closely and was blown away by his technique. I then worked at his son’s restaurant in Roppongi Hills; there I was able to get my hands on a knife to help prepare the sashimi.”

Having done time in kitchens around Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and China, he’s well placed to create the bao, miang, dumplings and other Asian treats on the menu.

Wylie compares his foodie journey to a good cocktail: “one part Japanese, one part Thai and a splash of Korean shaken with a dash of LA, and served with a twist.”

If you’re searching for your next favourite place for afternoon grazing to turn into dinner out, or scoping the city for a new haunt for nightcaps, Hot Sauce could just be it.

You can find Hot Sauce at 90 Cable Street. To be in to win a $200 voucher for a hot night out, find the Hot Sauce post on the Visa WOAP Facebook.