Cafe 98

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

Rick Stein has pointed out that the culinary revolution means at remote pubs in the Highlands of Scotland, where once you would have been lucky to find a stale bridie or mince pie, you're now offered pan-fried fillets of mahi-mahi on a bed of spiced aubergine fritters.

"You simply can't get good, simple food any more. Why can't you go into a restaurant and get two pork chops or a grilled lemon sole? Why do you have to have it with lemongrass or chilli or kaffir lime leaves?"
Which might sound rich, coming from one of the TV/celebrity chefs who has marinated, roasted and basted the changes in our dining habits over the past decade. Stein, who argues for simple food, well cooked, might be surprised if he bowled into Cafe 98 and read the menu (assuming he could get a table or a seat at the bench in the front window: it's usually crammed).

First, though, let's set the scene. You're on a wide, pleasant suburban street, old villas, quarter-acre sections, leafy trees and kempt gardens, that runs from the mall-madness of Highbury to the quiet old-world of Birkenhead Wharf. Here and there are outposts of shops, reminders that this was the Great North Rd through the shore and on to Whangarei before the bridge changed a way of life and North Harbour seceded from the union.

Cafe 98 is in one of these, a graceful corner shop where the Hellaby family sold their first chops in 1911 (white tiles still line the walls, that bench is the Italian marble counter), where Rose's lime juice was squeezed and Fielder's cornflour ground. Tonci Marinovich opened a coffee shop in 1994 and, operated by Richard and Anita Ransfield, it is now a bustling daytime cafe and evening bar-restaurant.

Which brings us to the food. One of Ransfield's chefs, Taro Otake, won the NZ beef dish, and another, Matt Grimmer, won the junior pasta dish at the hospitality show last month to go alongside Cassandra Brewer's newcomer chef prize last year. And brings us back to Stein: what they do with the food, which is quite remarkable and exactly what you wouldn't expect from a quick look at the heritage building, its penny-farthing bike and the clientele, suburbanites of a certain age rather than style queens.

The Asian hot noodle salad was a treasure trove, each forkful uncovering another flavour, capsicum, carrot, baby corn, snowpeas, cabbage, spring onion, ginger, coriander and peanuts, in a dark and salty soya sauce. Baby pork sausages, about the size of your middle finger, were sweetened with yam shavings and an apple feijoa jus, late-winter comfort food with a twist.

So many chefs have followed David Griffiths' lead that, except at Vinnies, lamb shanks have become a cliche. Instead, Cafe 98 serves wild boar shanks, braised to the point of the meat falling off the bone, on roast golden kumara, with wilted cress and kumara shavings, finished with a boar jus and apple syrup. You can have one or two shanks: I stopped at one because, to steal from the Inuit, some days you eat the boar, some days the boar eats you.

The night's special was duck, which seems to have arrived on everyone's menu this year, a generous and delicious rendering with tastes of ginger, asparagus and a mash.

Cafe 98 is the sort of place where people tend to eat regularly, where everyone knows your name. So the service is matey, without being over-familiar, but efficient and helpful with it. Our waitress was obliging and knowledgeable when asked to match each course with glasses of wine.

Reluctantly, because it's almost impossible to disagree with his philosophy of simple food, well cooked, and because I particularly like pork chops, I have to part company with Rick Stein at this suburban cafe-restaurant that presents interesting, intriguing meals with a fair degree of complexity and challenge. Cafe 98 should be encouraged to keep on this adventure. Wouldn't mind the address of that pub in the Highlands, either.

Open: 7 days from 9am, 5 nights (Tues-Sat)

Operators: Richard and Anita Ransfield

Chef: Richard Ransfield

Food: NZ and international cuisine

Smoking: Non-smoking

Wine: 5 bubbles, 10 whites, 3 aromatics, 8 reds — range $26-$ 40, all available by the glass

Noise: Chatter in front room, quiet music in second dining room

Cost: (mains for two) $45

Vegetarian: Asian salad and pasta on menu, vegan meals on request

Bottom line: A graceful corner shop where the Hellaby family sold their first chops in 1911 is now, under Richard and Anita Ransfield, a bustling daytime cafe and evening bar-restaurant. What they do with the food is quite remarkable and exactly what you wouldn't expect from a quick look at the heritage building in its old-world surroundings.

* Read more about what's happening in the world of food, wine, fashion and beauty in viva, part of your Herald print edition every Wednesday.