Archives for November 2018

DUNEDIN’S HISTORIC DINING ROOM

Once considered the finest dining room interior in the Southern Hemisphere, Tudor Hall in Dunedin’s Savoy Restaurant features dark English oak paneling and a magnificent English oak and Oamaru stone fireplace surrounded by lead lights and stained glass windows.

After almost a century, the Savoy continues to enrich Dunedin life.

Savoy Mirror (restauranthub.co.nz)

ENGLISH STYLE

Farming lad, Philip Barling emigrated from England to New Zealand where he found casual work around the North Island before moving to the thriving city of Dunedin to manage the Vacuum Oil Company. About 1910 he began a tearooms and two years later decided to develop a major English style restaurant to be called the Savoy. With its oak panelling, brass chandeliers, paintings and open fires, this soon became Dunedin’s top restaurant. Its Somerset Lounge, Warwick Room, and Tudor Hall indicated his love for things British. There were impressive restaurant decors similar to Dunedin’s Savoy in other New Zealand cities, especially in Auckland and Wellington, but these have long gone making the Savoy even more important as a survivor of the expensively fitted out eateries from the first three decades of the 20th century. read more