Fancy food back on the menu
Arrival of two new fine dining spots healthy sign for premium scene
From a $ 7500 bottle of red, live seafood and nine- course degustation to the ultimate chef ’ s table experience, expensive fare is on the rise at Auckland’s top restaurants.
Forget the humble meat pie or the city’s abundance of cheap eats; it’s all about abalone, champagne and caviar in Auckland’s expanding finedining scene with the opening of Simon Gault’s Giraffe and top Kiwi chef Nic Watt’s contemporary Chinese restaurant Huami this month.
Behind the big red doors at SkyCity’s Huami lie an exclusive drinks list, exquisite menu and twotiered wall filled with live seafood including crayfish — at $ 220 a kg.
You will find some of the most opulent dishes on page five of the menu — the abalone section. A dried seafood clay pot with abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw, dried scallop, shiitake mushroom and oyster sauce will set you back a cool $ 288.
The elevated Asian fare at Huami can be matched with a $ 375 glass of Martell l’or de jean from their impressive cognac selection. Chef and former MasterChef New
Zealand judge Ray McVinnie said: “When you are dealing with Chinese cuisine, they have a set of incredibly prestigious and expensive dishes, which are used for very special occasions — they are sort of status dishes . . . like abalone.”
McVinnie said eating out at all establishments - fine dining, casual or otherwise - was on the rise in New Zealand.
Another luxury offering i s The Grill, owned by TV chef Sean Connolly.
Described as “a traditional New York Steakhouse with a subtle modern t wist”, it serves a “Kagoshima Japanese wagyu” scotch for $ 105 per 150g
Watt’s Japanese restaurant Masu goes a step further, offering 150g of Japanese black wagyu beef for $ 120.
Red wine and red meat go together like bread and butter, so why not pair your wagyu with a bottle of 1985 Petrus French merlot for $ 7500 a pop at The Grill.
SkyCity Auckland’s general manager of food and beverage, Danny Bucalo said their restaurants had something for everyone, “as well as offering some high- value items for interested customers, such as abalone at Huami, and high quality wagyu beef at The Grill and Masu”.
The restaurants may be pricey but with their spectacular fit outs, impressive offerings, rare foods and celebrity- status chefs, they may just make you put your money where your mouth is.
Similarly, Giraffe, Gault’s new allday eatery in the Viaduct, is a beautiful, modern space that serves sharing plates featuring premium ingredients from top growers and producers.
Big- ticket items on the menu included a $ 178 suckling pig — ideal for four people — and $ 72 blue cod served with clams and spicy tomato salsa, designed for two.
But, with the words “availability is subject to fishing weather” written on the menu, at least you know the fish is as fresh as it gets.
There is also a plethora of degustation and tasting menus on offer at well- established fine- dining restaurants like The French Cafe, Merediths, Clooney and The Grove. The French Cafe, which was named in La Liste — a list of the world’s 1000 best eateries — takes the cake for the priciest offering, with their tasting menu including “premium wines” costing $ 305.
Co- owner and executive chef Simon Wright said people do not realise the costs associated with running a fine dining restaurant.
“You make way more money from a cafe or from a breadery than you do in fine dining.”
Wright said everything from the plates, cutlery and restaurant aesthetic to the white table cloths that have to be laundered, came at a cost.
“Obviously the labour intensity is immense. The actual products themselves alone are also way more expensive [ than normal restaurants].”
The restaurant’s tasting menu features everything from handpicked succulents and truffle to cured venison. He also promised to throw in a few surprises along the way.
The French Cafe uses seasonal produce sourced from a number of growers including foragers in the South Island who supply the coastal succulents, which Wright said he would serve with raw kingfish, crab, persimmon and ginger.
“The difference between fine dining and going out for dinner is we are trying to give you something that is an occasion and something that you don’t have all the time. Ideally you want people to dress up and make it special,” said Wright.
The exclusive Symonds St venue also offers a private chef ’s table experience where you could be cooked for by Wright himself.
You make way more money from a cafe . . . than you do in fine dining. Simon Wright, French Cafe