Winning Ragtag To Open A Second Restaurant On Karangahape Rd. Why Now?

Auckland’s Michelin-selected restaurant Ragtag is opening a second location on Karangahape Rd. Owner Daniel Freeman speaks to Varsha Anjali about what to expect.

When Daniel Freeman biked past the vacant site among the row of white terraced buildings on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd about a month ago, he wondered why no one had taken it.

He looked around. He had promised his wife, Hazel, he wouldn’t get a second restaurant while she was busy with admin for the first, doing her MBA and working as a theatre manager at a private hospital all at once. She looked around too. Then he had an inciting thought: “Ah, s***, this is really good.”

“We weren’t going to do it unless it was perfect,” Freeman says. “It seems pretty perfect.”