KEY POINTS:
Herald on Sunday rating: 3/5
In Italy, a trattoria is a small, usually family-run establishment serving simpler food than you will find in a ristorante. Ciao adds the adjective "gourmet" so you know not to expect spaghetti bolognese and pizza. They also serve a raspberry sorbet before the main course. The alert reader who scents a big bill will not be disappointed.
Perhaps because the place was empty when we arrived, characteristically early, we were invited to choose our own table. As welcomes go, it seemed slightly offhand for an upscale place, but our waiter, a comic-book Italian, had fun when the Blonde and I started heading in separate directions.
"You should always follow where the lady wanna go," he told me, in a tone of mock reproof.
"Always?" I asked.
"Up to you," he shrugged. "If you wanna have a problems."
We settled at a table in a corner, though the next two groups to arrive were seated as close as possible to us while an empty room yawned beyond. Perhaps the waiter felt we needed company. Certainly he gave us plenty of it, regaling us with a rambling story about how he was once given, for $5 a bottle, a case of the Brunello that I was paying $15 a glass for. When I asked whether his job at the time - he was a traffic policeman - had something to do with his good fortune, he seemed puzzled.
I was on the point of asking him whether he didn't have something he needed to do, when he finally took the hint and retreated to the bar. There he adopted a position that obscured him behind a large jar of olives, so that, for the rest of the evening, I had to half-stand to attract anyone's attention. That'll teach me.
It's not going too far to say the service at Ciao was second-rate.
When I asked the cop-turned-waiter to recommend a wine for my antipasto, he seemed to have no clue, and his three very different suggestions were unhelpful. A waitress redressed matters slightly by commending a chardonnay with the gamebird, a happy marriage I would never have proposed.
As to the food, it was, given the bill and the billing, underwhelming. An antipasto of pecorino, a Tuscan sheep's cheese, was an unsuitably mammoth block, most of which was bagged to take home. By contrast, the handmade tortelli stuffed with roast pumpkin and another pecorino was tiny: it was delicious without being fabulous, but it ought to have been at more than $4 per mouthful.
The Blonde's fish main was billed as a fillet but she seemed to spend a lot of time picking bones out of her teeth, and my two quail, stuffed with foie gras, confirmed my experience that the only succulent game bird is a living one, although the rich mushroom risotto on which they perched was a treat.
The Blonde's antipasto, a melt-in-the-mouth carpaccio of fish with a citrus sorbet (a recipe reportedly concocted by Arrigo Cipriani at Harry's Bar in Venice), was the evening's only knockout.
We passed on a dessert menu that does not venture beyond the usual suspects (panna cotta, tiramisu, gelati). A mistake, perhaps: it might have sweetened the experience - though not as much as a bottle of that $5 Brunello.
Ciao Gourmet Trattoria
328 Lake Rd
Takapuna
Ph: 489 1332
Open daily from 5pm
Wine list: All Italian, extensive and mostly expensive.
Vegetarians: Two antipasti, one pasta, one risotto.
Watch out for: Feeling crowded in an empty room.
Sound check: Subdued.
Bottom line: Occasionally excellent but wildly overpriced.
THE BILL
$181.50 for two
Carpaccio $18.50
Pecorino $16.50
Tortelli $24.50
Mains (2) $67
Rocket $7.50
Water $9.50
Wine (3 glasses) $38
- Detours, HoS
