Foxtrot Parlour

A Ponsonby haven for diners with a sweet tooth

SET-UP & SITE

I’d not noticed Foxtrot Parlour, despite having been to Ponsonby Central dozens of times. You enter via Richmond Rd, near Bedford & Soda. The carpark —always a dodgy bet to score a park in at the best of times — was closed for works. There is (in demand) street parking down and around Richmond Rd; we were lucky and made it in the door just before a lukewarm attempt at something I kind of remember as rain started. Inside it’s deliberately shabby, scruffy even, with distressed furniture (those old school house wooden chairs are about as comfortable as they look) and a floor-toceiling cabinet with vintage typewriters, antique (or at least retro) plates and a silver kettle among the wine bottles and glasses. Our red-painted tabletop needed a wipe and the glass counter cabinet — full of impressively big pies and pastries — needed a bit of a Windex, though this was noted not by me but by my clean-freak friend Lynne.

SUSTENANCE & SWILL

Kill me now, for I have gone not only pescatarian but mostly keto (no carbs, no sugar). But this was lunch masquerading as brunch and, while I wasn’t going to eat Bambi (no deer was on the menu), I did murder some sugar and may have eaten some of the sourdough bread that came with my halloumi, along with roasted tomatoes and pesto ($19.50 or $22.50 to add a poached egg — which I’m glad I did as the portions were modest). Lynne went with the adorably nonsensical dish called Rumblethumps, which translates into crushed potato and cabbage with English cheddar, hollandaise and middle bacon braised in cider with soft-poached eggs ($23.50), though she ditched the bacon. Both dishes were well-cooked and seasoned, but both a little on the small side, given their prices. Should have got the pies. A cafe always gets extra marks for serving wine — in my universe anyway — and Foxtrot has a smallish but varied list of wines, beers, ciders and even bubbles. Their sweet treats looked great: doughnuts are a speciality but there’s an abundance of sugar to be had, including the meringues, which came with cream and raspberry coulis and were very good, and a caramel fudge, which was probably too much with the meringues but well-executed, without the graininess you sometimes encounter.

SERVICE & OTHER STUFF

No one said hello when we came in, or gave us menus. The staff were perfectly sweet when they took our order, but engagement was thin on the ground. In a town full of really good cafes, it all just felt a bit underwhelming.