A homecoming.

Matt Lambert is an Auckland-born chef who started as a dishwasher in West Auckland at fourteen, before training in Auckland and Wellington and working under Michael Meredith at The Grove. In 2006 he and his wife Barbara moved to New York, where in 2013 they opened The Musket Room — earning a Michelin star within four months, and holding it for seven years, an unusually fast rise for a first restaurant.

In 2026, they came home. They named the restaurant Return.

Barbara leads the floor, bringing the same warmth and precision to service that the kitchen brings to the plate. Together, they've built Return as a more grown-up, considered version of what they created in New York — refined but relaxed, with a strong sense of place.

Return is Return in every sense: a return home, and a return to independent, personal hospitality.