Rating: * * * * *
Where: Princes Wharf
Phone: (09) 978 2020
Website: whiterestaurant.co.nz
Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily
The first time I ate at White, it was with Stephen Fry. That's not as hideous a piece of name-dropping as it sounds because I've always taken the view that Fry's major achievement is being Stephen Fry. Still he's an excellent conversationalist (particularly if you're a good listener) and he loves test cricket which makes him a top bloke.
Better still, he handled with effortless dignity an appallingly homophobic joke delivered by someone else at the table (did I not mention it wasn't just me and my mate Stephen?): while I cringed, he emitted a barely audible sigh and headed outside for a smoke.
White reinvented itself in June last year and needed checking out.
The good experience started as I booked (as always incognito, using the Professor's name). Use the valet parking, the bloke on the phone said, giving me his name and telling me he'd sort out payment.
I was rather glad we did, actually. I would have been a bit annoyed about paying $15 to have the Corolla reversed into the nearest of a dozen empty spots right outside the hotel entrance, so close that picking up the car was a matter of being handed the keys. But the offer set a nice tone for the evening.
White's relaunch - an appropriate term for a restaurant in a building that looks like an ocean liner - is built on what it says is "a new food philosophy", which is a decision to "celebrate New Zealand-grown produce". This is the kind of vague marketing cant - like "committed to excellence" - that sets my teeth on edge. What does "celebrate" mean? Do you dance around an Ohakune carrot? Better to cook it, I would have thought. And New Zealand-grown produce as opposed to what? Are there restaurants here that lure the punters with, say, Pakistani trout or Polish venison?
But if the spivs in marketing deserve to be made to walk the plank off the foredeck, the folks in the kitchen can stay. Under executive chef Cristiano De Martin, they do a terrific job with a seafood-heavy menu that takes inventive approaches to familiar dishes.
The chicken thigh is stuffed with feta and thyme; the snapper comes on a salad of pulse and chorizo; the house version of a fisherman's basket is matched with butternut and garlic. These are bold and smart ideas - and, as we would discover, the desserts were similarly thoughtful: a pear flan and a liquorice parfait were dishes of real character, not just something sweet to pass across the tongue while you wait for coffee.
Six plump and glistening Clevedon oysters with a shallot-and-wine glaze got us going and the Professor tried a delicate carrot-and-saffron soup followed by the quite perfect snapper.
I went the carnivorous route with a juicy cake of braised and shredded beef cheeks and a memorable loin of lamb, perfectly bloody and encrusted with an oriental spice mix in which cumin gently predominated.
The service was precise and unobtrusive - though I couldn't help noticing that an American at an adjoining table who plainly liked his tucker had to wander off and flag down a waiter and, to his credit, did the justified complaining under his breath. For our part, we couldn't fault a thing - and if you've ever met the Professor you will know that is a very uncommon occurrence indeed.
Ambience: Ship-shaped
Vegetarians: Two entrees, two mains
Watch out for: Dusk on the harbour
Bottom line: Flawless
