The dish: Gourmet heaven

The menu at Gala Cafe gives a nod to some famous names in the culinary world - chef Anthony Bourdain, New York delicatessen owner Arthur Reuben and Sydney restaurant Danks St Depot.

Bourdain's pate de campagne with pickles, French mustard and bread; Reuben's famous Madison Ave deli sandwich and Danks St's chicken livers with spinach and prosciutto are among the many gourmet delights at this new, ultra stylish cafe in Mt Eden. It's one of the best cafe menus we've seen in a while - innovative and eclectic. We could probably eat here every day for a month and not get bored. Some of our favourites - Aunty Daisy's stewed apples with yoghurt, toasted brioche with lime curd and mascarpone, My mother-in-law's North Indian eggs and asparagus on toast with prosciutto, poached egg and pecorino.

Owner Peter Chichester (formerly a chef at Benediction and Stella before that) has gone for a minimalist look - concrete walls and two oversized menu blackboards dominate the look. A must-visit.

Gala is at 23 Edwin St, Mt Eden, ph (09) 623 1572

Soup of the day

Some days you just feel like something substantial and wholesome. Hungarian goulash, Marrakesh chicken or French onion with cognac will all the do the job nicely so thank goodness for The Soup Kitchen.

There are 10 soups on the menu and you can customise them to suit your taste, adding fresh herbs, cheese, yoghurt or sour cream for no extra charge. The soups come with oyster crackers, a roll, or bread.

We can recommend the tomato and capsicum, pictured. Topped with a sprinkle of parsley and swirl of yoghurt it's a surefire winner.

Soups are $6.90 for the regular size and $7.90 the large, or you can add a salad or wrap combo for $10.90.

The Soup Kitchen is at 51 High St, City, phone (09) 379 7229

What a card

Cookbooks can be cumbersome things. They take up too much kitchen bench space and get covered in whatever gourmet delight you're whipping up.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has come up with a series of brilliant, wipe-clean cooking cards which feature a recipe, shopping list of ingredients, cooking instructions and a photo. There are two packs - hot dinners (including spring pea and bacon soup, roast cod with garlic mash, sweet and sour poussins, and rump of lamb with lentils). And there are some great sweets, including caramelised apple tart, cherry clafoutis, bananas in rum caramel and chocolate mocha tart. Each pack has 20 recipes.

$24.95, published by Quadrille and distributed by Southern Publishers.

Now you see him ...

Revolving doors at Atlantis, the restaurant in the Ascott Metropolis, reviewed last month. Varick Neilson, who was lured back from Queenstown as executive chef for the Sydney-based hotel owners' venture, has moved only a few weeks after the restaurant opened and is off to a resort in the Bay of Islands.