WHERE: Top floor, Mercure Hotel, 8 Customs St, Auckland (09) 302 9424
OUR MEAL: $747.50 for eight people, including breads; five entrees, eight mains, four vegetable sides, five desserts, cheeseboard, coffee, four bottles and five glasses of wine, water and juices. Average around $90 for three course meal and three wines.
OUR WINE: Short, specific, mostly local and a few Australians. Lacking breadth.
VERDICT: Good food, decent ambience, fine views and woefully staffed.
OUT OF 10
FOOD: 8
SERVICE: 3
VALUE: 8
AMBIENCE: 7
KEY POINTS:
There is a common observation - too often true - that when it comes to restaurants, the higher you go the less appealing the food. The subtext is that restaurateurs believe the outlook will be so diverting you might not notice what's on the plate.
Although I have often enjoyed the bar in Vertigo for its views of the city and harbour, I hadn't eaten there in many years but had heard it was pretty good. Better than you might expect given how high up it is. So with half a dozen guests who had been very good to me I was relieved everyone was more than happy with their meals.
As to the service however, I think Gordon Ramsay would have been apoplectic within minutes. When booking, I had been discreetly warned they had a table of 20 in just before us, so we pushed ourselves back and had drinks in the bar.
I sympathised with the sole barman who had to not only serve drinks to us and others, but also to the restaurant - then make 20 coffees simultaneously as the big group wound up its dinner.
That said, this could have been anticipated but I got the clear impression Vertigo was understaffed and, I put this charitably, in a dither.
We seated ourselves and waited patiently, then out of frustration I hailed a young man and asked if we could order drinks. He said we could, went off, someone else returned and took orders, then someone else arrived to ask if we wanted to order drinks or mains.
I said we were waiting for drinks and might even want bread or entrees before our mains ... The drinks eventually arrived. And so it went all night, while staff - we were attended to by three, perhaps four, people - were busy doing something we waited for service. Later I again had to hail someone when our drinks had long since run out. What compensated was our meals.
All the entrees, including the "interesting" Yorkshire pudding with blue cheese ($12), the excellent slices of seared venison loin ($16) and the chicken salad ($14), were all much acclaimed. Of the mains - pork belly was off the menu, a house guest got the last one delivered to their room - we were impressed by the beef fillet ($34) and duck breast ($30). Admirably, Vertigo allows its junior chefs to showcase dishes of their own design and the spiced chicken breast ($29.50) from that menu was considered excellent by those who had it.
So Vertigo has much to recommend it, not least that view. But that and good food didn't compensate for the frustrating feeling that the staff were trainees, and the manager was having a night off.
I pity them if Gordon Ramsay ever drops by - although I'd love to be there to watch.
