Origine, Commercial Bay's new French food offering. Photo / Babiche Martens
Origine, Commercial Bay's new French food offering. Photo / Babiche Martens
In their own words: “Experience French cuisine using the finest New Zealand ingredients.”
First impressions: Origine’s dining room is poetry. Floor-to-ceiling windows, chandeliers, drop-dead gorgeous drop pendants - nobody could look bad in this room. How do I light thee? Let me count the ways ...
Who’s who: Co-owners Benand Cara Bayly, Chris Martin and his wife Lucile Fortuna, are the quartet behind Ahi. The executive chef is Thibault (Tibo) Peniarbelle and his partner Judika Ramcharand, the restaurant manager. If Auckland is a village, then Auckland hospo is a shared flat with better-than-average cheese.
On the floor: Origine’s waitstaff must sell a rare hamburger patty without mentioning “hamburger” or “mince”. They must know (and correctly pronounce) at least five types of French cheese and the regions they come from. They must be able to judge exactly when to force a decision from the couple who cannot decide between the duck or the lamb or the duck or the lamb or ...
The menu: OMG that BEHEMOTH of a menu! Full credit to the waitperson who waited out our indecision and quietly highlighted a few favourites including “fruits de mer” - the pick-and-mix DIY seafood tower that requires you to breathe deeply when you order the Australian king prawn ($18 a piece). Other menu headers include hors d’oeuvres, entrees, plats principaux and “le grill” which, it turns out, you probably already know how to say in French.
Origine's famed "fruits de mer" - diners can choose as much (or as little) seafood as their wallet allows. Photo / Babiche Martens
The neighbourhood: If Commercial Bay was a Monopoly board, then Bayly and Co are now paying rent on Regent St and Park Lane - Ahi and Origine occupy elevated corner spots of the shopping precinct’s Quay St frontage.
Best bite #1: Raviole d’abalone and escargot was a pāua-filled pasta with a snail and spring vegetable ragout in a garlic veloute. The stock-enriched roux was velvet-soft and offset by a pile of spinach that had, I think, been sloshed with some good vinegar; the single ravioli was sublime and I don’t think I’ve seen brighter greens outside of a phone filter. I loved the humour of snails-on-snail and the way the plating played up that story - gastropods in a beautiful, verdant garden. It was the dish of the night, totally justifying its fine dining price while nailing the dining room’s good-time brasserie vibe (yes, you can eat the begonia flower).
Best bite #2: Had the menu said “seared tartare” we would have been prepared for the rare meatball. “Steak hache” was coarsely chopped eye fillet, seasoned, reformed and fried to a crusty exterior and a juicy interior. I wouldn’t order it again (I really, really wanted that duck) but I was glad to have ordered it once. Restaurants allow you to taste places you’ve never been to and learn new words and techniques you might not try at home.
Sea snail meets garden snail - the pāua ravioli entree at Origine. Photo / Kim Knight
The jury’s still out: Choux pastry, cherry tomato, goat’s curd and honeycomb. Who wouldn’t, right? Well, I’ll tell you who shouldn’t - the kind of diner who’s still livid she paid $8 for a walnut-sized piece of food. I don’t care that the tomato was peeled, choux is a bit tricky to make (unless you are, say, a chef) and the cheese was really fabulous - that nanoscopic gougere needs to be upsized, stat. (There’s an unevenness about Origine’s prices and portions - the luscious, falling-off-the-bone $51 lamb main would feed two, or even three, diners).
On the side: Definitely order the pomme puree a la Robuchon. Definitely do not google the recipe for Joel Robuchon’s potato puree. Ignorance is bliss and so is 250g of cold butter to 1000g of hot spud.
Dessert: Eclairs, souffles, rice pudding - sadly, I’d eaten too much potato and couldn’t even contemplate a petit four (the selection changes daily).
Perfect for: Lively special occasions. Prices, food and fit-out are high-end, but there’s nothing stiff or upper-lipped about the ambience.
This hefty, 32-page list kicks off with cocktails ranging from a $16 sauvignon blanc-based grapefruit and hibiscus spritz to a $28 classic French75 (Champagne, gin & lemon). Me personally? I see Origine’s Pisco Sour and I have to have it. Wines by the glass (all French) start at $15 for 150ml of viognier, beaujolais or Bordeaux, up to $32 for a flute of Ayala Brut Rosé - but half the pages contain helpful little lessons on the geography and heritage of each featured region. Origine’s Champagne section boasts wines from the Cote des Blancs, Montagne de Reims and Vallee de la Marne. The Bordeaux and Burgundy (Bourgogne) explainer pages are so good you could forget to order food. Plus, you’ll learn about the Languedoc & Roussillon, Provence and Corse (Corsica), Jura, Savoie and aromatics from Alsace as well as the Rhone, the Loire – it keeps going. Chardonnay fans will fawn over big-guns from Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet and Pouilly-Fuisse alongside a tonne of petit chablis, chablis and premier cru chablis. So make like Th’Dudes and drink yourself more blis(s).
There’s even a very tidy list of local wines (by the bottle only) if you feel like comparing a 2019 Ata Rangi Martinborough Pinot Noir ($230) to say a 2006 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru Henri Boillot ($1150). And, if you had the coin, why wouldn’t you?
The Scotches are classified into Highland, Lowland, Islay, Speyside and Blended, plus there’s bourbon, rye, Japanese or NZ whisky on which to sup, plus a tonne of other terrific spirits to slake your thirst on. Tres bonne Origine, tres bonne.
