WHERE LAND meets sea
What happens when the finest fruits of Marlborough’s Awatere Valley and O:TU vineyard’s award-winning wines come together with the culinary mastery of a top harbourside restaurant? You get a dining experience to remember – and a corker of a view.
If you think world-class New Zealand wine and the freshest local seafood are an unsurpassable combination, you’d be right. Well, almost. Because add in a beautiful harbourside venue, and you’ve got the ultimate dining experience for the wine and seafood-lover.
O:TU vineyards in the Awatere Valley produces wines that embody the passion, skills and know-how that the world associates with wines from the Marlborough region. On the culinary front, Harbourside Ocean Bar Grill is an institution on Auckland’s restaurant scene, priding itself on dishes created with the freshest fruits of the ocean. Marry the two, and it’s a culinary love story.
Harbourside venue manager Vanessa Chant explains they opened in 2012 after undergoing a multimillion-dollar refurbishment. From the moment you make your way from street level up to the restaurant, located in the historic Ferry Building, past the stained glass windows on the stairway, you know you’re in for something special. The ethos of ‘premium fun dining’ is suffused into the stylish décor and fabulous art work, and you can linger
over a sumptuous seafood platter as you gaze out over the harbour from a sun-drenched deck or candle-lit dining room.
“Our philosophy is providing an experience that brings together the freshest elements to deliver an award-winning dish that looks so great when it is placed in front of you it almost looks too good to eat.”
The restaurant specialises in local seafood – as well as offering premium beef, lamb, venison, duck and vegetarian dishes. The seafood platters reign supreme, but also popular are the live crayfish from Fiordland, plus classics such as whitebait fritters and sustainably caught whole market fish.
Harbourside’s Whitebait Fritter accompanied by the O:TU Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc – a full-bodied wine that builds up and ends on a long, fine and appetising mineral finish – is a match made in heaven. And for those who like something a little different, there’s the delicious Dry Red Curry Hapuka paired with the O:TU Reserve Hawke’s Bay Syrah – a plush and juicy wine with bold dark berry notes.
“We like to wow our customers sometimes with the unexpected.”