Smith Bar at Britomart. Photo / Babiche Martens
Herald rating: * * * * *
Address: Galway-Commerce corner, Britomart
Phone: (09) 309 5529
Website: www.smith-bar.co.nz
Open: Mon-Fri 11.30am-late, Sat 5pm-late
Cuisine: Great-aunt Mabel
Wine: Champagne pour moi
Oscar liked to make an entrance. He had always enjoyed seeing himself and he believed that others should share the joy of his appearances.
Unfortunately Britomart's architects had conspired against him. He'd hoped to have been transported from the underground platform to the main street, but the glass
portico was an illusion. It gave out to dusty bus stops, carparks, and the rear end of old buildings.
"What seems," Oscar thought, "to be the front entrance is really the back passage. One can't very well make an entrance at the exit."
He looked at his watch: 12.30.
Time for... he looked around, there must be somewhere; his eyes lit on a terrace, a bar, tablecloths and rush chairs. Pot plants. Awnings. A gentleman might chance on a half-decent cup of tea there.
Outside? And ruin his alabaster tan? Inside. Good Lord! What had he happened upon? The place was like Great-Aunt Mabel's parlour: a white statue of a nymph. A wall of gold-framed mirrors. Plush-upholstered sofas and chaises-longues. Perhaps not Great-aunt Mabel's parlour; the stag's head, faux-Landseer landscape were more Great-uncle George's library.
A waitress bustled over. Not in a bustle, in a print mini. "And what would you like today, sir?" He would eat, but that could wait a while, this was a room that demanded time, relaxation and... yes, the sun was over the yard-arm, or at least the cranes on the container wharf. "Champagne. Please."
The menu recommended it, and Oscar could resist anything but recommendations.
He looked to the ladies who were lunching on the terrace: high tea like he'd never seen since crochetty old Great-aunt Mabel's day. Scones with jam and cream, genteel rolls of thin white bread and butter and asparagus, ham, curried eggs ... even cucumber sandwiches. On a three-tiered silver cake stand, with lamingtons and Belgian biscuits for afters.
Heaven only knew what might happen later in the evening but for now he or she or they could imagine themselves in a novel. Oscar wasn't sure which period was evoked, but all of English literature from Jane Austen to Wodehouse was here.
Lunch had to be a toastie. Ham and cheese, as in the dorm after lights-out at boarding school. It arrived on floral china, cut into four neat triangles, with salad leaves.
Oscar considered another glass of Champagne and thought the better of it. There was nothing better to think of. The waitress brought it over. A writer of sorts, Oscar sensed inspiration.
He reached for his notebook, and pressed the on button. Googled smith.bar to find that it was yet another venture from Sam and Simon Ansley, the twins whose names can be found on the company papers of ventures like Mac's Nuffield St, Lone Star, and the Northern Steamship Co. on the other side of the Howick bus-stop.
He got up and went to pay. "Did you enjoy your lunch," the waitress asked, glancing down at his eftpos card, "Mr Mild?" "Very much," he answered.
I think I will be back, he thought as he walked into the main street, by the right entrance this time. "Yes," he told himself. "You will, Oscar, you will."
