Herald on Sunday rating: * *
Where: 23 O'Connell St
Ph: 309 5456
Open: Lunch Tuesday-Friday; Dinner Monday-Saturday
Wine list: Avoids the obvious
Vegetarians: One main
Watch out for: The jellybeans by the till
Sound check: Conversation-friendly
Bottom line: Things fall apart.
At the top of the tiny canyon of a street just off Freyberg Place, this inner-city institution is a survivor. The service was always uneven, but it was hard to fault what came out of the kitchen.
It has been almost exactly three years since I was there, and, hearing that the place was under new ownership and having read a couple of complimentary reviews, I decided it was just the kind of place to take a couple of visiting Australians for a casual midweek meal.
At first glance, all looked well (they've kept the apt, wine-dark colour scheme and binned the silly idea of bottles lining the wall), but first impressions can deceive: it was mostly downhill from there.
Our visitors belong to that rare breed, polite Australians, so they never said a word all evening about the meal. We remained engrossed in a discussion about whether they use the term "youse" as an informal plural form of "you" (they do; in fact, "youse mob", which originated among Aboriginal speakers, is a distinctive Ocker variant) and there was a brief moment of excitement when the Blonde scurried across the room to alert a woman at a nearby table that her menu, which she was holding over the candle flame, had begun to blister and smoulder and was about to burst into flame.
So not until our main-course plates were cleared did I remark that I didn't think much of the food. The two Australians gazed at me with obvious relief. They had not wanted to appear ungracious - did I mention they are not typical Australians? - by saying that the meal I was shouting them was...
Well, that's my job. It was quite bad. It was plain, slightly homely tucker that would have been perfectly fine in a provincial pub if the prices were under $20, but it betrayed Merlot's impressive record.
None of us ordered the pork belly - a house standard before any non-Chinese joint in town started serving it - so I cannot say whether it is as cracklingly good as it used to be. But the other signature dish, the bangers and mash, has gone and what's left is boringly conceived and undistinctively executed.
Bruschetta starters were soggy. My "crumbed veal fillet" was triangles of dry schnitzel with two wedges of lemon. The accompanying green and potato salads were what one would expect from a good staff cafeteria. Across the table, overdone lamb cutlets leaned in most ungainly fashion against a monster pile of kumara mash. A special of tuna was far too thinly cut for its texture or taste to survive searing.
The obliging proprietor aside, the service was suspect: two of our number were not drinking wine, but we had to repeatedly pester the waitress for water. And when we ordered two desserts, specifically saying that each couple would share one, no side plates were offered; we battled over them, mid-table, at arm's reach, trying not to drop bits.
I am told the new owners have retained the chef; perhaps he was having an off night. But the new management seems to have dispensed with what was distinctive about the last incarnation - the amusingly literate blokes' dunnies have been colonised as a storeroom - and introduced nothing of substance.
I miss the old Merlot, dodgy service and all.
