Felice, Herne Bay

Stop me if you've heard this before: celebrity chef with the cookbook and the television appearances and the restaurant with his name above the door, buys an eatery, makes it over into a buzzy Italian trattoria, and installs a group of young chefs and front-of-house staff that he has faith in, to give them a leg-up in the business.

Fooled ya! We're not talking about Jamie Oliver and the Jamie's Kitchen kids at Fifteen in London. This is what chefs Simon Gault (Gault@George, Larry Ellison ... ), Shane Yardley (Alain Ducasse's Spoon+, Gault@George), and the urbane, front-of-house face Steven Overend (Red, Palazzo Roma) have done at their new venture, Felice, in Herne Bay (pronounced Fay-lee-chay, means happy, joyous).

We are breaking a Viva rule here so we'll be upfront about it. We try to give new restaurants some time to settle in, get their kitchen and dining-room acts together, run the spellchecker over the menu.

Purely by accident we have lobbed up at Felice on opening night. In the private room, the wine merchants are being entertained by the raconteurial elegance of Mr Victor Williams; at a prime table by the window, the bankers are accounted for.

Out front, Overend is worrying about all the things that a post-modern restaurant manager has to fret about: is the eftpos system on line, is the website up? Too damn bad about the holograms that were supposed to play pictures of Italy on the pavement, that'll happen next week.

Gault is in his whites (with a nod to black, he is close to Ponsonby after all) and in the kitchen with the lads.

But this restaurant is not a big boys' toy. Gault and Overend are mentors. Gault has talent-spotted Mark Turnwald at the George stoves in Parnell and is giving him a break, putting him in charge of Felice's kitchen. Chris Denne, the young maitre d', runs a ra-ra young staff under Overend's avuncular eye.

There's been a hurried but groovy makeover since Essence left the stadium. A fresh paint job sets off the walls of the two-storey brick villa, stylish black satin brocade lamps, faded prints of Tuscany, and hey, the joint feels brand new. A former door does duty as a bar-leaner. The bar, the only one on Jervois Rd open till the small hours, is downstairs; dining room up.

Gault has renewed his passion for Italian food since a recent visit and the menu is stacked with traditional favourites. He relies on the integrity of ingredients - local and fresh produce combined with imported delicacies - and straightforward methods rather than obsession with technique. Similarly, the excellent wine list is loaded towards handpicked Italians.

Salads - olives and tomato and basil and dates and cheeses and fritto di golosotti, candied walnuts with a spinach salad - will set you back only 10 or 14 bucks. Pastas are rustic - chicken and prosciutto, ricotta and rabbit ravioli, mussels, prawn and crab.

Of four seafood dishes, the highlight on this night was a hapuku fillet, sauteed and then sweet-and-sour-soused to a light, piquant joy.

Mains are hearty, and the menu will doubtless be lightened over the summer. There's a flavour burst in a lamb casserole with artichokes, finished with egg yolk and lemon juice - will go for it again. Which is what the pricing, with mains under or around $25, is intended to make folks do. Oh, and the liquorice panna cotta.

Yes, this was opening night and the diners were excited and the staff were pretty hyper at getting the boat out of the dock. But Felice feels - well, what the name says, and there are precious few places in town that have its buzz. Prediction: this will go off like a hand grenade in a junket factory. Another prediction: the three wise men will open a few of 'em.


Open: Dinner 7 days until 3am, lunch Tues-Fri

Owners: Simon Gault, Shane Yardley, Steven Overend

Chef: Mark Turnwald

Manager: Chris Denne

Food: Italian

On the menu:

Spiedini alla romana, buffalo mozzarella grilled on skewers $14.50

Spaghetti piccante, sauteed mussels with spaghetti and chilli in white wine sauce $14.50/ $23.50

Cold smoked Akaroa salmon on crushed peas $22.50

Veal fillet on polenta with cipoline onions, mascarpone, parmigiano, marsala sauce $26.50

Vegetarian: It's Italian

Wine: Italian-influenced; upmarket locals, too

Bottom line: Simon Gault and two experienced cohorts open a buzzy trattoria in Herne Bay, creating a lively, mid-priced meeting place. A smash hit.

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