RESTAURANT REDUX
One winter’s afternoon last year, Dunedin restaurateur Katrina Toovey received a call to say No. 7 Balmac – her beloved neighbourhood eatery in a quiet part of Māori Hill in Dunedin – was on fire. It was the middle of a busy lunch service; the fire broke out in the extraction system above the wood grill in the kitchen downstairs, and the back of the building was alight in a breathtakingly short time.
Within a few days, it became obvious there was more than a bit of work to do to reopen. “The bar was removed, wall linings pulled out, the ceiling was taken off and all the wiring went,” says Toovey. “Everything was taken out.”
The restaurant opened a temporary
