The wait is over

Saint Alice reinvents the oyster

Iwent away for December and when I came back, someone had beer-battered the waterfront.

At the Viaduct Harbour, new restaurants were sprouting faster than menopausal chin hairs. (I wasn’t going to write that but my boss of a certain age said to tell it like it is).

Someone was flogging flatbreads and a trio of dips left from the late 1990s. One place was doing “vintage” caviar for $300 and asking customers to inform its “agents” if they had dietary requirements. Another entrepreneurial spirit had laced a rhubarb panna cotta with turmeric because studies show that in the first month of a new year the worried well will believe anything.

Where to eat? The shop fronts were new but a panna cotta by any other name is cream and gelatin. The menus left me flat and uninspired. What, I wonder, will they feed vegetarians if the world runs out of eggplant?

And then I found Saint Alice. Who the f*** is Alice? (I wasn’t going to write that either but readers of a certain age will recognise it for the pop culture reference it is).

Alice? Don’t know, don’t care, but her deep-fried oyster mcmuffin with black garlic aioli has shot straight to the top of my Best Things About 2019 chart.

I’m pretty sure the muffin was as deep-fried as the oysters, a treatment I wouldn’t normally countenance. The best way to serve an oyster is alongside 11 other oysters, all raw, all cold. Sometimes, however, you want to slum it. On those days, you should head upstairs to Saint Alice.

The sun-soaked, sea-breezed restaurant is from the makers of Dr Rudi’s Rooftop Brewing Co and is set in the old Kermadec site. It’s been fitted with plants and tiles and a British racing green feature wall. Inside is nice, outside is summer-plus. The cocktails are Alice-themed (in Wonderland, living next door, etc) and the food reads brilliantly — think creamed corn

and smoked snapper toasts or grilled ox tongue with pistachio praline.

Head chef Maia Atvars is ex-Depot. I didn’t know this when I ate there, but it makes sense. Sitting harbourside, slurping bone marrow, I had considered this a saltier Depot. That oyster muffin certainly had a fish slider somewhere in its DNA but it was more than the food that led to the comparison.

Argue ’til the dairy cows come home about whether New Zealand will ever have a national cuisine. What we eat is constantly changing. What is consolidating is the WAY we eat. Our favourite restaurants are smart-casual and seasonally-driven. Service comes with a side of humour and grace and the dining rooms don’t intimidate.

Saint Alice ticks all of these boxes. Personally, I’d reconsider cranking the stereo at 7.36pm (even the waitstaff winced) but order the wood-fired lamb to share and all you’ll hear is angels singing.

The rump ($40) had a perfectly rendered fat cap and an even more perfectly rare interior. White beans, tomatoes, lemon, olives and parsley created bucketloads of well-balanced flavour. That balancing act was, mostly, evident throughout the evening and best exemplified in a beetroot salad that also featured dark chocolate, kale, citrus and sour cream.

Health-conscious diners may want to stick to salads and the raw bar but let’s celebrate a kitchen unafraid of fat. Whole flounder? It comes with a butter sauce. Steak? Why yes, that is a ramekin of cheese fondue. Our dish of “torched” tuatua ($16 for six) was slathered with smoked butter and I didn’t mind a bit.

That said, I’d skip the bone marrow ($16). When it comes to fatty essence of cow, moderation is key. Leave the customer wanting more, not looking for a defibrillator. Our bones were dinosaur-sized, the marrow a little underdone and sludgy and the gherkin dressing didn’t stand a chance — a rare misstep given all the goodness gone before.

Any last requests? Summer berries ($15) slaked the throat. A banana-nutella brioche pudding ($14) would have been delicious even minus a soft meringue topping.

In that earworm of an Alice song, the protagonist claims to have spent 24 years “just waitin’ for a chance, to tell her how I’m feeling, maybe get a second glance ... ” Dear Saint Alice, for this reviewer, it was love at first battered-bite.