Gault at George, Parnell

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

It is a lousy, stinking wet, cold night on Parnell Rd. A torrent about the size and flow of the Waikato in flood is coursing down the hill past Bedingfields, making a sharp left at the York St corner and heading towards the rail bridge.

Robert P, our waiter at Gault at George, is reverentially reciting three entree specials, four mains specials, and a couple of other things.

On a night like this, when someone talks about beef cheeks that have been braised for four hours in a chianti classico until the meat falls off the bone and you don't need a knife, only a fork to break up the meat and mash it into the sauce and maybe some gnocchi or veges, we are suckers. We are gone. We do not order it, but that is only because other delights tempt us.

By coincidence, or a genetic predisposition towards classic Italian food, most of the dishes we chose came from Simon Gault's recent OE to Italy, which has heralded a change in style for one of our most exciting chefs: less complicated, a single item served on a plate, its natural flavours enhanced.

That might not seem obvious in a spinach lasagne, where he slips ricotta, turkey, wood-roasted tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella and hurls "a healthy sprinkle of Parmigiano reggiano" over the top. Shredded rabbit and duck fill the cannelloni, roasted in the wood oven, with an olive oil and tomato sauce, bursting with tiny, sharp purple olives.

The chicken breast arrives just as he's promised: almost on its ownsome on the plate, apart from a dribble of sauce. The first knifestroke reveals the parmigiano, cream and spinach surprise inside. The dish on the other side of the table is from an older menu and vividly illustrates Gault's change in style. Turkey breast, tiny fennel and manchego sausages, all slowly cooked in an olive, sage and tomato sauce, porcini, gnocchi, pearl barley polenta.

Robert was assigned wine duties, and rightly decided that there was to be no mucking around with this gutsy food. Honest Kiwi varietals first up: Wishart cab-merlot for the lasagne; Te Mata Woodthorp cab-merlot, a touch more heavy duty, with the cannelloni. He eased it back a cog for the main dishes, Quartz Reef pinot noir with the chicken and its cousin from Martinborough, Te Tera pinot noir, alongside the turkey.

Gault's food remains ebullient and irrepressible. Robust flavours and the best available ingredients are assembled with flair and enthusiasm. There's nothing pallid here, but that's not to say there is no subtlety. For example: a tiny, wobbly panna cotta in passionfruit and fennel soup accompanies his dessert cones.

And if you want to know the secrets, Gault will reveal much on October 1, when Random House publishes Simon Gault Cooks. Kevin Roberts is coming from New York to be guest speaker. Oh, the place will be full of celebrities: Roberts' artworks of Twiggy and Michael Caine hang on the walls. Last time I looked Steve McQueen was above the fireplace, but I guess they're not quite sure where to send his invitation.

The main focus of Simon Gault's trip to Italy was to attend the Cibus food fare in Parma. "Our menu will soon reflect some of the new ideas gathered there," he says.

"I visited Masala in Sicily and had arranged, I thought, to observe a 'service' in a restaurant owned by Massimo, another restaurateur friend of mine. He pulled a real smart move and when I arrived at the restaurant I was presented with an apron and prep list in Italian and told to get on with it."

When he came home, Gault briefly offered a more traditional, Italian-style menu based on the food he'd seen and tasted.

"We wondered how the traditional single item served on the plate would be received, but it worked and this told me a lot about how far the New Zealand diner has travelled in the last little while. My food has and will continue to become less and less complicated as I lean further towards the Italian style of presenting a single item served to enhance its natural flavours."

And there will be more Italian flavours on those drop-dead tasteful plates. For 10 days from August 10, Nicolo Cavallaro from Ama Restaurant in Milan will be cooking at the restaurant.

Address: 144 Parnell Rd

Ph: 358 2600

Gault at George

Open: seven days, noon-late

Owner: Lou Jones

Chefs: Simon Gault, Shane Yardley

Restaurant manager: Robert Johnston

Food: Classic Italian, contemporary Kiwi style

On the menu: Mushroom stuffed ox tongue in porcini pastry with a chilled basil and pinenut mousse $16.50

Eye fillet with kumara and garlic mousse topped with a basket of cognac and green peppercorn mascarpone $35.50

Butterscotch pudding surrounded in warm cream topped with rum-spiked caramel sauce $15.50

Wine: You drink it, it's here

Vegetarian: Naturally, a special selection

Disabled access / toilets: Street entrance, well-planned facilities

Bottom line: Simon Gault returns from travels in Italy with a pared-back style: less complicated, often a single item on a plate, cooked and presented to enhance its qualities rather than surrounding it with a wide range of textures and flavours.

The restaurant, though, doesn't change: top service, consistently high quality with a relaxed, more buzzy atmosphere than most in this bracket.

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