Delicious

By JOHN GARDNER for viva

Shirley Bassey regularly used to bawl bathos-laden lyrics about being outside a restaurant with her nose pressed up against the window pane.

But the flip side of this dispiriting experience is that smug satisfaction gained from having a table and watching other people being turned away.

Get your timing right and this ignoble pleasure is a distinct possibility at Delicious, an appropriately named little establishment, whose reputation has spread by word of mouth to draw would-be customers from way outside its Grey Lynn neighbourhood.

One reason it often seems to have groups milling around in frustration on the pavement outside is that it is small, with a meagre handful of places inside and only a few more in the backyard.

You do wonder about the cachet that being hard to get can bring, like those nightclubs that prosper because not everybody can just walk in. And you cannot even hang around over a wine or two, because Delicious has no liquor licence at all and the conspicuous spending on liquid peters out at paying $8 for a litre of Italian water.
But the simple explanation for this establishment's popularity is that the food is excellent. Simple is the right word. Its inspiration is Italian and, unlike some other restaurants that call themselves Italian, it has grasped the essential idea that clean flavours and freshness are the key.

Simple pastas and risottos are the mainstays of a menu that is not extensive but has enough variety to make choice difficult. There is a vegetarian predominance, although fish and flesh eaters are not ignored.

On our most recent visit I was distressed that the fennel risotto, a truly delightful dish, had vanished, but the broad bill penne, which featured fennel herb, tomatoes, capers and olives came in off the subs' bench and did a sterling job.
Our other main choice was even simpler, potato gnocchi with basil pesto and parmesan, but again excellent. A purist colleague has since expressed reservations that the gnocchi were not made one at a time. But, like all the food we have tried here, the dish was characterised by that fresh home-made appeal.

The desserts, featuring a melting tiramisu and cakes of various degrees of elaboration, are similarly fresh and breathing flavour. We felt we couldn't manage one each, but split a diplomatica cake, which is basically a chocolate mousse cake, at once rich and light. Our restraint here was an error. We should have gone for the option exercised by our more intelligent neighbours who, having discussed the virtue of each dessert against the fact they were full, bought a dessert each to take home.

And this is a saving grace of Delicious for those who can't find the window of opportunity that produces a table: it does a roaring trade in takeaways.

Open: Monday to Friday 10am to 9pm, Saturday 6pm to 10pm.

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