TRUE ROMANCE
Jesse Mulligan visits French bistro Le Chef
Having stepped into Italy last week at Pasta & Cuore I had an appetite for more authentic European eating so the invitation from Le Chef arrived at just the right time. It’s not often I visit a restaurant because the owner has asked me to, least of all on the same day, but an energetic press release boasting that the restaurant now had “more fairy lights” was just the sort of news event I needed.
Le Chef is, of course, super- French but it’s also very London- like, comprising a small wooden-floored dining room upstairs and a staircase down to an underground kitchen and toilet. Most of the restaurants around Leicester Square and Covent Garden have this sort of subterranean annexe, and there’s something pretty romantic about it, so long as you don’t think too hard about what might be scurrying around behind the plasterboard.
Back in Auckland there is a romantic feeling to Le Chef too, although their bright table lights needed a bit of adjusting before my buddy, Sandon, and I were able to get properly into the mood. At the table next to us were four French women looking impossibly beautiful and sophisticated — the sort of look that is apparently stamped on to Gallic babies in the womb. If management weren’t paying these people to sit there they should think about doing so — it immediately gave the dining room a Parisian feel and, with the addition of a heavy- accented waiter and a Cotes du Rhone syrah, I could close my eyes and pretend the trip to France that Covid- 19 spoiled for me had actually taken place after all.
The menu takes some navigation, counter- intuitively organised with mains at the front, then cheese, salads and, finally, “snacks”. I will say that at first glance the offerings aren’t superexciting: steak frites, croque monsieur, smoked salmon pasta . . . it all feels pretty casual for the inner city, but once you pick a couple of things and relax with a glass of wine you won’t find much to complain about. We ate a rustic duck terrine with some good bread and cornichons before following up with a vegetarian dish each, and a couple of meaty mains. Every mouthful of everything tasted like it had been created by a chef with a deep understanding of flavour, salt and fat, and so if you are, as we were, a bit underwhelmed at first by the choices, I encourage you to press on and pick something. It’s unlikely you’ll be disappointed.
The flank steak is really, really great, balancing the tension between tasty and tender as well as any cooked piece of meat in town. Sandon went for the black pudding, which isn’t house- made but seems like it; sliced thickly and warmed up in a pan, it softens to a point where it is almost falling apart and is served on a bed of perfect mashed potatoes with spring onions folded in. That’s probably as simple a recipe as you’ll be able to find on the Auckland isthmus but I’d be surprised if you can find much that’s more delicious on a cold July night.
The salads are mesclun-heavy but have their own unique French treats — goat’s cheese baked in filo on one; seasoned, roasted capsicums in another. Calling the latter a “ratatouille” may have been overstating it but there was nothing on the plate to warrant complaint. This is not a restaurant where you painstakingly analyse every dish that comes out but one where food complements the wine and conversation — and Auckland will always have room for that.