From France with love BUSINESS BITES WITH BILLY

Marie Navailles, Armelle Capineri and Luigi Ferrari each moved to Blenheim in 2022 and took over operations at Scotch Wine Bar and Restaurant at the end of April. William Woodworth chats to Marie, Armelle and Luigi about their new adventure.

For those who haven’t come in since you took over, how would you describe Scotch now?

We’re all experienced working within the wine industry so taking over a wine bar and shop was a natural progression. Luigi has been a French chef for 25 years, so this gives him the opportunity to try out more international dishes and Kiwi classics while keeping his French flair. We wanted to bring a sharing atmosphere of food to Blenheim so people and families can enjoy their time together over shared plates.

The three aspects of the bar all intertwine, as we have our full restaurant menu, our tapas-like bar menu and our wine shop where people can purchase bottles of their favourite wines we offer, from New Zealand or afar, to take home. Naturally because we are all French, Scotch has a French ambience and style, but we ensure you’ll be made so welcome, experience the friendliest service around and guarantee you’ll leave thinking ‘wow, what a special time we had – we’ll have to be back’.

How did this ownership arrangement come about?

So, we [Luigi and Armelle] met two years ago through all working on Waiheke Island – Luigi was working in the Island Frenchie food truck there and we started talking over a fantastic burger he made. We realised we had the same plans about moving to Marlborough about a month apart which was random, and the ball got rolling from there. Marie was already down here making