Part of the recently revamped Hotel DeBrett, ambitious Kitchen shows promise. Photo / Janna Dixon
Rating: * * * 1/2
Where:3b O'Connell St, Auckland
Ph: (09) 969 1545, www.hoteldebrett.com/kitchen
Wine list: Compact but classy.
Vegetarians: Two entrees; one main.
Watch out for: The eye-popping carpet in
the lobby.
Bottom line:Less would be more.
The new owners of the Hotel DeBrett say that its predecessor on the site was "Auckland's first hotel", although there is no evidence to support that and quite a bit to suggest it is wrong.
Nonetheless, the building, on Shortland St between High St and O'Connell St, is an Auckland
icon: its ornamented deco exterior sits easily among the handsome and imposing neo-classical Chicago "skyscrapers" such as the General Building.
And the do-up, which opened in January as a 25-room boutique hotel, is a welcome development in a city where we are fond of bowling old buildings and replacing them with leaky ones.
The restaurant, surely the most straightforwardly named in town, is actually accessed from O'Connell St, but I recommend approaching it through the main High St entrance so you can enjoy the fab entrance, the panelled stairwell and peep into the House Bar, a legendary watering hole where many reputations were made - and destroyed.
The restaurant is in an airy glass-roofed atrium with twee little balconies, which looks like a set for Romeo and Juliet designed by the people behind The Truman Show.
Judy Darragh's magnificent chandelier (made from an assortment of the hotel's former light fittings) and a corrugated iron sculpture by Jeff Thomson (of Te Papa's HQ Holden) are interesting enough, but there is a sense in the space that too much effort is being made.
The same observation applies to the floor staff. I suspect that they were still finding their feet when we were there, but there is a fine line between being obliging and being anxious to please.
But if the waitresses ought to dial it back a bit, so should the kitchen. Head chef Fraser Slack, who worked as sous chef next door at the O'Connell St Bistro, has designed some fabulously good-looking dishes, but something is lost in the translation between plate and palate.
I was deeply impressed by an entree of scallops. They're out of season here, so Slack has sourced some of the big, meaty cylindrical molluscs from the stormy Canadian Atlantic and they come seared like fat steaks.
Also in attendance was a very fine black pudding, while a little bunch of granny smith shoestrings and a drizzle of light lemon dressing completed the picture. Perfect.
But nothing else quite nailed it. The two components of the Professor's "zucchini and feta" fritter were not married, but just dating: the white cheese was a crumble on top, which made for a bland experience.
By contrast, my main of tuna was coated with sumac, which is a trendy spice these days, but its strong taste, which suits Middle Eastern food, does not, in my view, work with seared fish; it's for more wintry and fragrant concoctions.
The Prof's entree-sized main of snapper fillet was a trifle overdone although the warm cos lettuce it came with was a smart touch and Slack has triumphantly disproved my assertion that brussels sprouts cannot be made edible: he separates the leaves and stirs them through beans. Yum.
The restaurant was offering a pre-theatre special when we were there which gave us a couple of glasses of wine and a cheaper main course, otherwise the bill would have been just over $150.
Even that's pretty good value, and when the folks at Kitchen take a deep breath and relax, I am sure the experience will be perfect.
